Disillusioned
by SortaCore
Summary: Unwilling SI. Well, semi-SI, depending on how you look at it. And you could say she was willing, that depends on perspective too. Circumstances caused this story, and I'm being polite to Amy to tell it. / Canon divergent, added bloodlines, initially based in our world.
1. Lost in translation

**Disillusioned**

 _ **Chapter 1: Lost in translation**_

* * *

I crashed onto the bed, head swimming. I didn't ordinarily stay up late, much less drink, but what the hey. I was thirteen, and the getting was good.

Literally, I got at least a six-pack of beer, from some blond in my class who was so high I doubted he would remember me. Like every teenager, I wanted to know the lay of the land when it came to my body – and alcohol was an easy question. Who was I to refuse?

Well, my dad would yell his head off, but that's what dads do. Besides, I didn't have to worry about him today, I got a call – he wouldn't be back until the next weekend.

He worked a good fifty miles away, and he was behind on his work. He had to impress a client, there was an opportunity for a big contract if he worked quickly.

So much for relaxing at the pub on Friday, he'd be lucky if he got back on Sunday. If nothing else, my dad was a hard worker.

Anyway, what happened earlier today. I went down to a party, but no one I knew was there, so it didn't take me even half an hour later to get bored. My dad rang, so I quickly went outside and answered.

And then the classmate showed up, clearly drunk, stumbled in the front door of 'partah house', and two minutes later stumbled out, still clutching the beer.

"Hey, Ameh… I'm not allowed alcohol, sooo… I was thinking you take it. Yeah? See ya."

And then he was gone, stumbling back into the so-called party.

I put down the phone, frowned at the beer, and on impulse picked it up, still in the canvas bag. No one would notice it was beer, not if I kept it in the bag, so I went home.

Now I was home, and the beer glinted at me. I doubted it was high quality, but the lower it was, the rougher it would hit my liver, right?

Then I'd know if I could handle my drink. Last thing I wanted was bingeing at a party and finding out I upchucked on the second mouthful. Cool factor = negative two million.

Curiosity killed the cat, but still, let no one say I wasn't smart – I looked up alcohol poisoning, overdosing on drink, warning symptoms. I might've been a teenager, acting on impulse, but no reason to kill myself. I must've stared at the case of cold beer for ten minutes.

 _Let's see how I handle drink._

I popped the first bottle.

* * *

Third bottle, and I was beginning to get hazy. My vision was wobbling, but I felt heavy, in a good way. Like just before you go to sleep, you feel all warm and too heavy to move. Pleasantly sluggish.

I wondered whether I was going to have a hangover tomorrow. I stood up, grabbing a glass of water, and swallowed quickly. Chasers made it easier, right?

My vision wobbled sharply, and I stumbled, grabbing the wall. Maybe three bottles was enough for now. But I wasn't going to get another pack of six, and that meant I only had three bottles, right? I couldn't check if this was my limit unless I had more than three bottles; I'd have to get more.

I picked up the fourth bottle.

The taste was dulled, and I decided that was it. Four bottles was fine. My stomach was only so big.

I dropped the bottle onto the carpet and moved to the bathroom, with difficulty getting some more water and chugging it. Water was meant to clean your system, but to be honest… it just made me feel more bloated.

"Well, that wash depreshsing," I said out loud, blinking as I realised how slurred my voice was. "Oh gawd. Never am I gonna hash it again."

I stood back to my feet, the room swaying. "I'm gonna go sto bed."

I stumbled back to my bedroom and collapsed onto the bed. With the heavy, awkward sensation, it was a relief to lie down. The room swayed, so I shut my eyes, but that didn't really help. It felt like I was on a roundabout.

"Screw thish."

I was going sober from now on. This was awful. I blinked at my phone, trying to distract myself.

 _Oh yeah, today is a Thursday, new episode of Naruto out. I had read the manga, but let no one say anime couldn't show a fight scene in more detail._

 _The Uchiha Madara episode?_

 _Git rekt, army._

I grinned. _Such unladylike thoughts. But now, I can actually blame the booze for it. Booze was meant to make things funnier, being tipsy. Hmm… maybe I should put on a comedy, see if it was actually true._ I hit my favourite anime site. _What was that comedy I meant to watch? Everyday Life?_ I put on the first episode of _Nichijou_.

It was so damn ridiculous… I giggled at it, then I was laughing, helplessly. Booze didn't make things _better_ , but it did sort of… _tilt_ it a bit. Instead of being my usual quiet self, I just felt like I should let it all out, felt like releasing. Maybe that's why people socialised with it, you reveal more.

Thankfully, I wasn't nauseous. I would've called off drinking then and there for life if I was. After a few more episodes, I felt tired, and I just dropped off to sleep.

* * *

I woke up and my head was pounding. _Shit._

 _Wait, is that…?_

A figure was standing in the corner of my bedroom. I blinked at it, trying to work out if it was my imagination.

It was a grey-haired kid. He looked younger than me, but he wasn't from my class. I rolled my eyes. Duh, no one in my class had grey hair. Anyway, no sane kid would break into someone's house and stare out of the window. I remember, one of the symptoms of alcohol poisoning… it was hallucinating.

But let no one say I was going to be one of those idiots who ignores what they see. I slowly sat up. "Who are you?"

The figure's head snapped around. I caught a glimpse of a long scarf around his head. In an instant, he had jumped onto me, pinning me onto the bed.

Most people would be scared about now… but me? "Oh god. Get off, I'm gonna puke."

The kid looked bewildered. "Nani? Nihongo o hanashimasu ka?"

"FUCKING GET OFF ME!" I yelled, kicking him where it hurts. _Fucking Kakashi cosplayer burgling shit._ I stumbled up, but the nausea was too much, and I hurled all over the floor.

"Oh god." I spat on the floor, getting the dregs out. Unsurprisingly, I didn't feel much better now my room stank. "Who the fuck are you?"

I don't swear. I don't. I never do, in fact. Only when something that is impossible happens, do I swear in response. Since they never happen, I never swear.

"Hai?" He blinked at me. Whatever damage I did to his man bits didn't seem to be taking effect yet. _Had I actually hit there? Or had I hit his legs? …Or his brain?_

"Oh. Wait. _Oh…"_ I blinked back at him, gears slowly turning. "Don't you speak English?"

"Hai? Nihongo o hanashimasu ka?"

"Uh…" Nihongo was Japanese, right? He was asking if I spoke Japanese.

"No," I said sharply, sluggish brain gears not helping much. I grabbed my phone, hopping onto Google Translate. The bright screen hurt my eyes. "Who are you? Um… Eigo wa dekimasu ka? [Do you speak English?]"

The boy looked blank. "Eigo? Nanidesu? Wakaranimasen."

"Shit," I breathed. _What is this? A dream? No, a dream wouldn't have me hurling, or have words I didn't recognise._ Still, I could get points across. It's not like every mute person died.

I pointed at the floor, then at him, then made a scrubbing motion.

He looked horrified, and put his hands together, awkwardly making hand seals. Duh, a Kakashi cosplayer, of course he'd…

"Make your fancy seals all you want. I'll get a cloth, once I got this jank taste out of my mouth." I made my way to the bathroom, shoving him out the way, and chugged some water, getting the taste out of my mouth. My stumbling had decreased, I noted.

 _Wait what, the vomit has gone. Completely._ Chances of this being a very odd dream were going from almost none to almost definite.

He was jumping out the window. _Oh hell no, like I was letting this touch of supernatural out of my life._ I dived forward, grabbing him, and he gave a yelp of surprise as he overbalanced, ending up with him dangling from the window with my arms firmly wrapped around his legs.

"Hottoite!" he yelped.

I racked my brains, trying to work out how to tell him to come back in my meagre Japanese. "Chotto matte!"

Surprisingly, he listened. Well, he stopped struggling, anyway. "Hottoite, onegaishimasu."

"No," I said firmly as I pulled him back in. "Stop whining. You're here and it's the first damn time anything out of the ordinary has happened in my life. I'm not letting you out of my sight."

"Nani? Nante iimashita ka?"

"Shut up," I told him pleasantly, then I smirked, finally remembering the Japanese term, "Urusai!"

His eyes were wide. Well, his one revealed eye was. I grabbed his scarf and swiftly pulled it off his head, only to have him shut both eyes, scrabbling for the scarf back. "Yamate!"

"No! Urusai!" I felt a bit like a tsundere, to be honest. That was practically that Shakugan no Shana girl's catchphrase. We both grappled, but he was blind, so I managed to toss it onto my bed and he grabbed at my empty hands before scowling in realisation, eyes still shut.

"If you're a Kakashi cosplayer, why are you using a scarf?"

His frown got worse. "Kakashi ga ni!"

"Then who are you? Um… Nasi desu?"

"…" He didn't reply.

I couldnt remember the word for 'name'. "Fine." I pinned his arms and tried to pry open his left eye.

"YAMATE!" He yelled urgently, squirming and shaking me off. I quickly grabbed the bed, using it to keep my weight on him. He got his hands free as I grabbed my phone. "What are you…"

He was making more hand seals, so I grabbed his hands, putting my own in the way. "YOU yamate."

"Eieh!" he exclaimed, and it took me a couple of seconds to work out he was saying no. Japanese was such a weird language.

 _'Man, if my dad came home now…_ ' I blinked. _Hold on, why was he in my bedroom? Was it even safe to let him go?_ He was a teenage boy in a teenage girl's bedroom. And apparently he had chakra.

I eventually concluded it was probably safe. He hadn't attacked me while I was upchucking, and he was obviously intimidated by me. Maybe he thought I could use chakra too?

At any rate, he wasn't attacking me, just desperately trying to get his hands free to make seals for whatever jutsu he wanted to use.

"Yamate," I told him, trying to sound like I was going to cry. With his eyes shut, I didn't have to waste effort expressing it on my face.

His eyes twitched, and his expression changed, score one for me. "Onegaishimasu…" he said pleadingly, gesturing at his left eye.

I frowned. I was very curious now. _If he wasn't Kakashi… well, that would explain at least why he was getting overpowered by a girl with no chakra. Kakashi was a jounin as a teenager, right? So what doujutsu did this guy have if he wasn't Kakashi?_

I sighed and rolled off him. He immediately clasped his left hand to his normally-hidden left eye, holding it shut as he opened his right eye.

"Fine," I told him resignedly. "But you stay. Stay."

He blinked at me, scratching his head sheepishly. "Gomenasai, wakarimasen deshita?"

"Um…" I hit the ol' Google Translate, with him watching me use the phone interestedly. "Um, taizai."

"Nasi desu?"

"Taizai. Matte."

He nodded, frowning. "Made nani?"

"Matte," I repeated absently, tapping furiously. _He said 'Kakashi ga ni', which meant he wasn't Kakashi, but... it sounded like he knew who Kakashi was._

So, I didn't know anyone who looked like Kakashi bar the man himself in the Narutoverse. Which left three possibilities: He was either completely separate from Naruto, despite the hand seals... or it was a non-canon universe... or, there was a fairly good chance he was my imagination and this hallucination was ridiculously realistic. I've had dreams like that before. As far as I knew Kakashi never became a father, or even went on a real date. _Well, there was that episode with Hanare. I shipped that for a while._

But in any case, he had supernatural clean-up techniques of some sort... and he was in my bedroom.

"How did you get here?" I asked, but he just looked at me confusedly.

I sighed, feeling the adrenaline begin to drain into weariness. I didn't want to let him out of my sight, but I could hardly sleep in the same bed as him.

 _How can I talk to him? Google can only do so much. It doesn't know languages, it just knew how phrases translated, and strung them together. Chances are it'd be inaccurate._

A thought struck me. _Maybe I should call the police._ I reanalysed the random person in my house who had jumped me. _That… should probably have occurred to me earlier. But ol' silver-hair here seems like he's more scared of me than I am of him._

Silver pointed at himself then at the window.

"No. Matte," I told him.

He sighed resignedly, collapsing onto the floor. I scratched my head, then quickly pulled up a picture of the Konoha headband. "Do you recognise this?"

He looked up, frowning at it. "Watashiwa Konoha shinobi ga ni."

"Rightttt…" I said slowly. My head was starting to spin again. I wanted to sleep, but I didn't want Silver to vanish _. If only I had a pair of handcuffs, or some sort of Vulcan knockout move. It's pretty hard to play damsel in distress to get your way when you're snoozing away in your own house._

 _Of course, I could always be straight with him… if that would work._

I tried to put myself in his shoes. Strange language, strange world, strange girl… he was a long way from home.

Bingo. I tapped busily into the translator. "Um, watashiwa anata no yoru ni… neru basho o teikyoo shimasu…"

He looked puzzled and I cursed again. I showed him the screen and he read the kanji off it, his face clearing up a bit, before he looked at me. "Anata wa watashi ga koko de nete moraou ka? …Naze?"

"Uh… watshiwa…" I fumbled in my memory for what 'I'm nice' would be. "…sutekina?" I finished uncertainly.

His face paled, but I was done. _Forget this. It's like working with a deaf person. Worse._ No offence to deaf people, but I was not eloquent with sign language either. At least I wouldn't even _try_ with sign language.

My head was pounding. If he left, whatever. Worst he could do was confuse someone else or kill himself leaving via the window, breaking his legs and dying of blood loss. Protagonists never die anyway.

Despite the scenario it only took me a couple of minutes to start drifting off. Hangover drowsiness plus adrenaline expiring was powerful stuff.

* * *

 **"It was just fine, we lived in peace, looked to a happy ending…"**

I grabbed my phone and shut off the alarm, gritting my teeth. _So much for the headache going. It was all the worse. Damn it. On a damn Friday._

That song was noisy and jarring… that's why I had it as my second alarm. That meant I had to rush to get the bus on time. I liked the song, but metal was a good way to jar you out of peaceful sleep.

I got up, quickly dressing, muttering curse words under my breath. I nearly slipped over my own vomit and swore even harder. _Hadn't that gone? Didn't I clean it up yesterday?_

 _No… I hallucinated some weird Japanese Kakashi cosplayer doing it. No wonder._

My dad would be back next weekend, but my room would stink to high heaven if I left it until after school. I hurried to get ready and clean it up. _Febreeze would only go so far._

"Oh ostriches." I ran out the door, combing my hair frantically.

As the bus pulled up, I sighed in relief. _I have my purse, I have my phone, my earphones, front door key… it's good._

I get on the bus, take a random seat on my own, then start to drag my comb through my hair… and then froze as a voice hit me.

"Oh look, it's that slut from down the street."

"I hear you sucked off a guy for five bucks." His sister smirks, sprawling beside me and cutting off my escape route.

"Who invited you to the party?"

"You look like shit."

"She always looks like shit."

"Hey, how about you suck me off and I'll go find something else to do."

I grit my teeth in anger, my headache pushing me over the edge."For fuck's sake, Toby. I wouldn't suck your dick for a grand, even if I could fucking _find_ it."

"Ohhhh shit." Toby's sister sneers at him. "She's got a fucking point there."

Toby slaps me across the face, roughly. I block it with my arm but he keeps on hitting, both hands, flurry of awkward rage. His sister just smirks and leans back, blocking off my escape route.

"You won't be saying that shit when I've cut you up, bitch."

I was dimly aware this was the stupidest thing I'd done in a while and his bullying would hit an all high from this.

 _Fuck no am I letting him get away with it now that I'm resisting._ There's five of them, but only Toby is actually hitting me, the rest didn't appear that interested.

With adrenaline accuracy, I plant a fist right into his face, sending him back and across the guys sat opposite. _Man, that felt good._

Finally the bus driver notices and pulls over. "Will you twats sit down?!"

Toby looks like he's going to jump right back at me. I stick my tongue out at him. It's childish as you get, but he takes the bait, and half a minute later the driver chucks him off, much to the mocking laughter of his sister and his 'friends'.

He's _fuming_ as we drive past. It's brilliant. And I know it was a big mistake.

I turn to look at his sister. She grins, pats me on the shoulder roughly for the show and heads back to the rear of the bus, crew in tow. "You're gonna get it later."

She found Toby a bit of a wannabe, but she didn't like me either. I was shocked she wasn't just taking his place right now and pummelling me. I guess I had something to look forward to after school. I'd have to hide in the school library again during break too.

 _Well, today was looking to be a headache already. Speaking of which, I still had a hangover headache. Grreaattt. Thanks, genius brain. You could've just left it, but noooooo, had to go and escalate it._

Toby was smaller than me but not by much, and if I did manage to put him down in a fight, I'll get him on my case for the rest of the week. If I put him down too hard his gang would just take over.

I wasn't sure if being rude to me was just something he did to be cruel, because I wasn't popular, or because he was trying to macho tease me. He was clearly socially stunted if he hanged around his sister. Even if your siblings are cool, you don't hang around them _constantly_. You make your own friends.

I slump back in the seat, resigned to my fate.

* * *

Come lunch break, no sign of Toby, but I scurry to the safety of the library anyway. While the librarian wasn't thought of much, she was still a teacher, and she _could_ get you suspended like any other teacher.

"Adult youth is so cliché nowadays," I murmur disappointedly, idly flipping through the section. Action comics weren't my thing, and manga tended to get repetitive. Bad guy fights good guy, good guy wins after a teammate dies or looks like they're about to die.

Reality was just so bland.

No superpowers. No super nothing.

No weird machines. No mad scientists. No demigods roaming the streets, magic, no boss battles, evil villians, odd bods. All the weird people were excluded, yet it was cool to be 'crazy'. And because nearly everyone was 'crazy', no one actually was.

If there was a mad scientist, cooped up in his lab like Tesla, forget about him staying there very long. Health and Safety would knock down the door and psychiatrists would chuck him in the padded room. He'd do something bright and noisy as an experiment, fire a laser in the sky or something, and he'd get arrested for not getting permission from some branch of the government or Disturbing The Peace.

Celebrities were either corrupt, too stupid to be, or selfish idiots.

The biggest problems in the world couldn't be solved by a hero, or a group. Even all humanity working together would have issues.

I didn't like it. Here I was, struggling to get through just education, thanks to an idiot who probably has problems, making my life a problem.

Honestly, I didn't really hate Toby. I didn't understand why he did what he did. For all I know it was a broken home, child abuse, poor upbringing… he'd probably mellow out when he was older. People change.

But with all these fictional stories, all these weird pagan cults, all those religions, yet seemingly no supernatural things happening anywhere. It didn't make sense.

Either they were hidden from plain sight, or there wasn't any. Of course, scepticism made me think there wasn't, but I saw people speaking about Pearl Harbor and the Japanese bombing the ships. Enough people talked about it for it to be considered true.

There was enough people talking about magic for it to be true.

But nothing.

Nothing.

In this age of information, where people were more connected than ever, where proof could be established with something as everyday as your phone, no one had come forward with genuine supernatural power.

No one was bothering to document the magical/spiritual world, or no one could see it at all.

Or there was something in the spiritual world that made genuine experiences be disbelieved – or something that the more people knew of it, the more it would weaken. The more power you displayed publicly, the less you could access, like observation destroyed it.

Well, in that scenario, maybe you could tuck little bits of truth inside a fictional magic story. If people didn't believe it were true, the majority of people, then you'd be fine. You could tell the truth in a lie.

I scowled every time the teachers talked about career choices. _I have problems_ _ **now**_ _I want to deal with. How can I plan for years ahead when I'm busy planning for now? Everything was so damn_ _ **boring!**_

As the bell rang, I sighed. No sign of the gang yet. _After school it is._

* * *

And after school came. I walked to the front gate with the rest of my class, the sheer mass of people hiding me.

As I stepped out the gate and the crowd thinned to the pavement, I looked over and noticed that weird guy. Dresses in black, trench coat and cowboy hat. Not really a danger to anyone, just walked around, but people in the school were a bit weirded out by him.

This time, he was looking at the crowd of teens, eyes running all over their faces, trying to spot someone. Unconsciously, I shifted so another person blocked my line of sight to him.

"Shoujo!" someone was calling nearby. "Matte shoujo!"

In fairness, I didn't realise who it was. I just thought someone was calling for someone else, and Shoujo was their name.

The next thing I know, Hallucination Cosplayer had appeared next to me. To say I reacted well would be… yeah, I shoved him away.

Into someone else.

Who flung their hands out automatically with a yelp and toppled three other people.

So yes, it was no surprise when I saw Toby looking my way.

"Sorry!" I grabbed Cosplayer's hand on instinct and belted it down the street.

Frankly I was surprised no one fell into the road just then. Not the brightest idea to start pushing people off-balance while next to a busy street.

As I looked back for Toby, kind of pointless because I'd just run past too many people to have a clear line of sight, I noticed Trench Coat was following, on the opposite side of the street.

This was becoming a racetrack. Next a UFO would turn up and start casually strolling along, a cart and horse, some Roman centurion on a chariot, Air Force One…

 _Okay, freaking out a_ _ **little**_ _. Spare me._

Trench Coat wasn't running, though, just watching and walking along. _Wait, is he a cosplayer too? Was he one of Hallucination Cosplayer's buds?_

"Do you know him?" I gesture awkwardly, we're still running past other schoolkids.

"Nani?" Captain Clueless replies.

 _Thanks, Japanese. I used to like you, now… well, I still like you, but it's strained._ I racked my brains, but I couldn't think of the word. _Oh wait. Fairy Tail._ "Nakama desu?"

"Oh, uh… yeah," he replied.

"Do you mean yes or 'eieh' as in no, or…" I gave up.

 _Never mind, I_ _ **do**_ _hate Japanese. They call no 'yeah' and they answer negative questions with 'hai' the same as 'yes'…_

At any rate, I was getting out of breath, and Toby was nowhere in sight, so I turned off the street and grabbed Clueless' collar.

"What the hell were you doing in my bedroom? And why are you _here?"_ I searched his face, and my frustration kind of felt pointless with the blank look I was getting. _Dis bitch crazy. She be grabbin' my clothes yellin' gibberish._ Or so I imagined he was thinking. In Japanese.

I sighed, running my hand down my face and trying to understand what this meant. _So, Hallucination Cosplayer wasn't a hallucination. When he made my… accident… last night vanish, what was that? Did I actually hallucinate that part?_

 _Where was he during the time I was at school? How did he find me again?_

 _Who and what was he really?_

If he wasn't a cosplayer, then something seriously odd was going on, and that would be _amazing_. Something actually abnormal in my life.

"Hey you bitch!" Toby had found me, and I hadn't even noticed, too busy caught in my own thoughts.

"Damn it," I mutter, already looking for escape routes.

Toby's eyes flicker over the Kakashi cosplayer and he double-takes. "The hell is this?"

"Nakama desu?" Cosplayer asks, copying what I said earlier.

"No. Teki desu." Finally, a word I actually remember. Enemy.

"The hell are you saying?" Toby got Japan'd, just like me. Cosplayer analyses Toby, eyes suddenly hard.

In an instant he's got Toby in a chokehold, arms wrapped around his neck and pulling him backwards, his own weight choking him. I just gape at them, watching the kid I was trying to avoid swing around, kicking and scrabbling frantically for air. This was… too quick. He'd gone violent too quickly.

And he was too good at it.

I started to consider that he actually came from the Naruto world.

* * *

 _N/N: Damn it all if I can't escape from this I will kick your ass._


	2. Radically changed

**Disillusioned**

 ** _Chapter 2: Radically changed_**

* * *

 **E/N:** Sorry guys, when you have a panic scenario, the emotions you feel override the previous memories' lack of emotion, making you lose memory of what came before. In other words, you don't remember much of what happened before your panic scenario.

As such, this chapter is pretty short.

* * *

"Excuse me, miss."

The Trench Coat had turned the corner, and strode up, his footsteps so quiet I could barely hear them. I analysed his expression; looked a bit jumpy.

Well, someone was strangling someone else in front of him, so…

"Yeah?" _I hope I'm not going to get blamed for this._

"If you don't mind, can you help me get Silver here back to where he's meant to be?"

I looked back at Silver _(is that his name or was Trench just using the same naming system I do?)_ and considered my options. "Who is he?"

"He's my associate," said Trench Coat, giving an easy smile. He tapped his temple. "Not quite right up in the head, but I'm meant to deal with that."

 _And who's going to be dealing with you, Trench Coat? No one normal wanders around at all hours of the day and night dressed like that. Is there a Super Trench Coat who calls you his associate, too?_

 _Eh, it'll be safer to leave with two mysterious dudes than have them drop Toby and leave me on my own with him. I'm not an idiot._

My hangover headache promptly disagreed and I scowled back at it. _Shut up, body. You don't know shit._

"Do you speak Japanese?"

"Yes, kinda. At any rate, probably more than most."

 _So in other words, no? You're meant to do psychiatrist treatment on someone who can't understand you? Something is fishy here._ Or so I thought while Toby carried on struggling beside me.

"Chotto matte kudasai," Trench Coat interrupted Silver and started chatting in short Japanese phrases… which sounded familiar but I couldn't quite understand them.

 _Where's the subtitles?_ I mentally whined. _Don't do this to me, Captain Mysterious and his sidekick_ _Only-Japanese-Do-I-Speak. Next you'll bring out two pairs of tights and start fighting crime._

 _God, don't bring out tights. You're not talking about tights are you? …Wait, I should get them to put Toby in tights._

Unfortunately, Trench Coat didn't seem to be carrying any spare tights. He did manage to calm down Silver though, and Toby was soon gasping for air on the ground instead. Trench beckoned at me and we walked out.

Both Silver and Trench Coat looked very self-confident, despite the fact one was wearing sandals and old shorts with scarf around his head, and the other looked like he was ready to go for a hike to an evil lair. _Seriously, he was wearing hiking shoes, a trench coat, and a fedora. Who does that?_

Well, apparently he does. How do they look so confident? I barely feel confident about how I look in my school uniform, surrounded by teens my age wearing the same thing. It was so cruel being a teenager.

And being a weird Japanese cosplayer who's apparently tapped in the head. Not to say Trenchy wasn't as well, but at least he spoke English.

I glanced around, but no sign of Toby and co. Apparently he hadn't recovered _. Well, time for an adventure with Dr Strange and One Scarf Man. Where was Trenchy's villainous lair? He seems villainous. The British accent and self-confidence practically screamed of evilness._

 _Still, now I can analyse One Scarf Man closer, he doesn't look much like Kakashi at all. He's not covering his mouth, for starters. He's using a scarf on his head, not a forehead protector. His sandals do scream Narutoverse, though, and his hair is almost the same as Kakashi's._

We walked for a while, the route somewhat familiar. We eventually got to my house, much to my disturbance. "Oh, sorry, Amy. This is your house, right?" Trench asked, looking sheepish. "It's easier to get him home from here. If you don't mind."

I fixed him with my coldest glare. "No, it's fine." My voice was frosty enough to make polar bears start migrating to hotter temperatures. "So you've been stalking me too?"

"Well, it was more like I was tracking him, and it brought me here, so… are your parents home? I'll talk with them."

"It's fine, my dad won't be back until tomorrow. How did you track him?"

Dr Strange scratched his head, looking off into the distance. "Insert here a long-winded explanation involving circuitry, electromagnetic spectrum analysis, multicore processing and a lot of yelling at computer screens."

"Do you have to come inside?" _I kinda felt like I should be asking do you_ _ **want**_ _to come inside, but these guys were weirdoes. One made me barf and the other… well. I had the feeling he was even weirder. Definitely getting the Mad Scientist vibe off him._

"I'd prefer it, but I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable."

"You've already made me feel uncomfortable," I retorted. "Why would you need to come in?"

"Uh…" he looked like he was trying to make up something, then sighed in defeat. "Can't tell you."

"Fine, whatever. Come on in. Bring the whole extended family with you," I said agreeably, unlocking the front door and shutting it firmly in their faces. "Idiots."

It didn't take ten seconds for One Scarf Man to materialise on the other end of the hallway, although he was pretty quiet about his breaking and entering. Must be an window ajar somewhere. I swung my school bag off my shoulder and lobbed it at him.

He ducked and it hit the cupboard behind him instead. I scowled, knowing it'd be a one-way communication with him unless I got Dr Strange in as well. _To be fair, Trench Coat was as courteous as they come. Silver is just confused._

I opened the door and Trench Coat was tapping on his phone idly, looking a bit bored. _Oi, oi, don't dismiss my shut out by going on your phone. You're meant to look tearful, not brush it off. Damn it, do I have to take the back seat on things going on in my own house?_

"Get in here, Dr. Strange," I order him, and he slips his phone back in his pocket and gets inside. "And tell One Scarf Man to clean up the vomit."

"He vomited?" In an instant the phone was back out and he had gone onto a Memos app, looking very interested. "Was that as soon as he arrived?"

"No, no… I didn't see when he arrived. He was rough with me and made _me_ vomit."

 _Oh god, that sounds like I slept with him._

Trench Coat looked perturbed, but at least put the phone away. "How did he make you throw up? Did he punch you in the stomach or something?"

He took off the cowboy hat too, revealing brown hair that defied gravity.

"None of your business," I snap, spinning around and heading to my bedroom.

"Well, it _is_ my business what he does," he mumbles behind me.

"This way!" I talk over him.

The two Mysterious Strangers trail after me to my bedroom. Now there was a teenage boy _and_ an adult in my bedroom. Dad wouldn't even know where to start.

 _Well, he'd probably start with yelling. Parents get all the fun when it comes to just letting rip._

"Excuse the mess," I say automatically, scurrying to pick up my pyjamas and stuff from my hurried exit. "I wasn't expecting guests in my room."

"What mess? It's all so _adorables~_ ," Trench Coat attempts to joke, badly, so I pull off my shoe and lob it at him.

"I've gotten surprisingly violent since you two came," I ponder out loud, taking off my other shoe. "Get Silver to clean up that patch there."

Silver was avoiding it like the plague, giving it analysing looks like it was going to form creatures of Grimm and start biting his butt.

Trench Coat nods. "Speaking of which, where did you first see him?"

"He was there, looking out the window, last night about 3AM."

Dr Strange nods again, pulling out a small box with a circuit board inside. Then another box. Then another… and some wires… I blink at him.

 _He was like a terrorist. Long coat and wires. Don't start screaming something about Allah._ Then he pulls out something that starts clicking alarmingly similar to a Geiger counter. _Oi, was my bedroom going to spawn Radscorpions instead of Grimm?_

"Electromagnetic presence is still significant," he murmurs to himself, surrounded by a flurry of beeps and clicking noises. _Does he have ten pockets or something?_ "Still a little gamma, damn it."

"Gamma radiation? Are you telling me I've gone to sleep next to Hiroshima?"

"Yep," he agrees, sounding nonchalant about it.

Luckily, I have a free shoe, which I wave threateningly at him. "Don't dismiss it. Am I going to get weird radiation sickness?"

"Gamma radiation penetrates all environments easily, so unless you were surrounded by lead, concrete, or several feet of water yesterday night, there's a good chance you have radiation poisoning, yes."

I'm not sure whether to believe him. He has this weird ability to sound serious and dismissive at the same time. "How many rads are there then?"

"Dependent on where this guy entered, anywhere from fifty two thousand to three hundred. There's only lingering radiation here now, so it's not obvious. It's lucky I've got here soon; any time after 24 hours with high enough exposure and you'll probably be dead already."

A shiver went up my spine. "Are you wearing protective gear? Is that why the trench coat…?"

"No, I wear it because it's warm. If I'm an idiot and expose others to radiation poisoning, I deserve an equally good chance."

 _How can you say that so easily?_ "Isn't there pills and medicine for this sort of thing?"

"The mortality rate when treated for high exposure is still 100%. Of course, that depends on Gray absorption."

He sweeps over to me, putting his hand on my forehead. "You don't seem to have a fever, and your central nervous system seems fine. Did you have any diarrhoea, headache… you said you vomited?"

I nodded, shrugging. "Well, I had just downed four bottles of beer, so I assumed it was that. I had a big hangover headache as well."

He frowns. "You're a bit too young to drink, but whatever. Alcohol would have overloaded your system in a different way, combining the symptoms, so it's even harder to diagnose. Hmm…" he taps his chin thoughtfully, "You vomited, you don't have a fever, you had a headache, and you're more violent… the only other thing to check is your hair."

"My hair? It's not going to fall out is…" I reach up, give it a light tug, and at least half of it gives way. "Is… it…"

"Well, guess that answers that question." The man checks his phone. "And for what it's worth, if you get care at this stage, your chance of death drops from 95% to 50%. It looks like you absorbed 6 to 8 gray of radiation."


	3. A questionable reality

**Disillusioned**

 _ **Chapter 3: A questionable reality**_

* * *

 **E/N:** Longer chapter this time. The panic scenario is remembered in vivid detail, you see.

Please excuse the language; it wasn't exactly my idea to write it, but I want to portray her personality as closely as possible.

* * *

"Are you fucking kidding me?!"

I grab the Geiger counter out of his hand and hold it to my skin, and it clicks happily away. I sort of turn off, staring at it as the little digital display pumps numbers at me, the clicking far too rapid.

I've no idea how much is too much radiation, but I could guess I had way too much.

"I'm going to need some figures, and then we'll investigate this closer. You might be okay."

"I damn well better be!" I tug a little more on my hair, and there goes some more, my beautifully-maintained locks falling apart thanks to Idiot-faced Idiot. I pause. "Wait, shouldn't I like, call the hospital?"

Trench Idiot-faced Idiot scowls at me, unimpressed by the suggestion. "No point. We're nowhere near a nuclear power station; no one will believe you've got gamma poisoning, and if they did, they probably won't have the medicine or machinery to treat you. Plus, there's only 50% chance at best even with all of that. If you want to spend your time doing that, go ahead."

I nearly throw the Geiger counter at him, but he might need it. "IT'S _YOUR_ FUCKING _FAULT!_ "

"Right." He doesn't deny it, just looks at me with the same unimpressed flat expression, like there's something obvious I'm missing. "I'll show you what the error is and why Silver here turned up in your bedroom. Come with me, I'll sort this all out."

"Wait… You can actually sort this out?" I look at him, even my radiation-addled brain calling bullshit. _No one can cure radiation. It's not a virus._

He rolls his eyes. "I can pull someone out of a fantasy world into your bedroom, and create enough radiation to kill you as a mere side effect. Why can't I get rid of that radiation?"

"It's not _physically_ possible to remove radiation. It's not an infection that a pill can deal with, it's not an infection, it's a mutation," I insist, breathing speeding up as I pull another clump of hair out. My carefully-conditioned, carefully-maintained hair is falling apart. It's one of the things I was proud of, and…

"Amy, calm down," he grabs me, spinning me around and pushing me onto the bed.

One Scarf Man looks on, looking alert and highly confused. I scowl at Trench Coated Idiot. "Don't tell me that. Can _you_ stick my hair back on?"

"Yes, maybe, just come with me before you do any more damage," he says sighing. "Come on, we don't have much time."

I sit up, scowling. "Fine, but if I lose more hair, I'm going to…"

"Before you threaten me, figure out if it's my fault first." Trench Coat Idiot starts pocketing his devices, still waving around the Geiger counter carefully.

I hadn't noticed him taking it out of my hand. He has weird sets of abilities. Or my brain is too irradiated to be observant.

"Now, I'm going to fix all of this," he says, confidently. "You just get ready to go on a trip."

"Wait… a trip where?" I ask him suspiciously.

He grins, carefree as always. "To my place, and then, to the world of Naruto."

* * *

My reaction to that was first disbelief, then analysis; if Cosplayer was no cosplayer, and was pulled from Naruto into reality, then it served that Trench could send someone back.

Then I started to pack. Forget food and drink; clothing, mobile phone, chargers, all into a rucksack I hadn't used since I was little. While I was packing, Trench started running a device all over, looking like he was taking a 3D map of the room, judging from how he was shoving it into the corners and around every edge in sight.

I grabbed all the stuff I thought I would need – suntan lotion (in case I Suna'd), my laptop, external hard drive with all my anime downloads on it – in my head, I started working out everything I would need, starting from head downwards to shoes, and I was pretty much ready.

"Good to go?"

"Ready!" I grinned, then realised what was still happening. "Wait, why will sending me to Naruto fix things?"

He explains simply, yet it comes off as such an intriguing answer. "There's no nuclear radiation in the world of Naruto. Remember, the creator was born in Japan, a country that has suffered the affects. If he added it in, there'd be a severe detriment to sales and public opinion. So, there's no such thing as nuclear radiation in Naruto."

I hummed thoughtfully. "Besides that… I guess nuclear radiation is kind of pointless as a jutsu."

He nods, tucking away his counter. "Yeah. It's essentially the same as a slow poison, maybe a contagious disease, but ultimately it's too slow to use in battle, and too hard to obtain and infect if you're going for a covert kill."

I slip my bag onto my shoulders, considering my response – missing parts of a fictional universe simply because the author never imagined it. Deep stuff. "Yeah, I guess…" A thought struck me as I grab my house key and I stare at it for a moment. "Wait, what's going to happen to my father?"

I look up at him to see his response. He doesn't look guilty, just thoughtful. "Your father? Oh, your parents, yes, chances are we won't have to tell anyone. If I send you to the Narutoverse, the radiation will vanish, and I just transfer you back.

"Then all that's left is to send your room there… if I can get the equipment set up in time. All the stuff in your room is probably radioactive, after all," he waves his hands, gesturing somewhat erratically to make his points, "but it's only a metastable nuclear state, not an active leak of gamma radiation, so I would expect anyone else to be fine. It'd be a significantly above a background dosage for your neighbours, but they wouldn't have reached a deadly stage as quickly as you did what with two walls and several metres of air in the way. Their exposure is far smaller, so it'll be a problem for them in a far greater period of time. That said," he looks thoughtful, "we do obviously need to get them to clean this area."

"You tend to ramble."

"I overthink things. Well, I say overthink, I analyse things very heavily."

"But I will be fine, right?" I ask him,

"Don't worry," he assures me, smiling. "I'd be doing the exact same thing for me in your position. And it's far quicker than going to the doctor. Plus, I have backup plans."

"Right." I nod at him, turning away as a worried frown forms. _He didn't say yes, but he's doing the best he can. Am I comfortable with that?_

I roll my eyes. _Well… what other options are there?_

He grins. _"_ Let's go, then."

* * *

His house is as normal as they come on the outside, same as every other house in the street, until you get closer. The front door doesn't have a lock. Or a handle.

As soon as we get close, it unlocks, almost like a car.

"The Bluetooth on my phone unlocks the door," he explains, stepping inside and pressing some buttons on a little number pad. Around the number pad is scuffed-off paint marks where he cut at the wall to install it, and he hasn't bothered painting around it. I guess he's focused on the job more than his environment.

"Okay, we're good. The machine that brought this guy here is in the room on the left."

I look inside that room and frown. Curtains closed, inside is what looked like a computer setup with a few pieces of gym equipment and slightly off-kilter shelves hurriedly put in to accommodate things. Wires are everywhere, but tucked out of the way, and in the centre of the room, there's this huge rack of black boxes and wires on wheels. "What's that?"

He's pulling off his coat and shoes, gesturing in for Silver. "It's a home-made Tesla Powerwall. Basically, a giant battery for your house. On the off chance I blow up something, this'll keep everything running."

"Do you blow up things often?" I ask, and I will deny my eyes lit up at the idea. I'm not exactly fond of explosions… at least, not the ones at close range.

"No one plans for a war. They plan to restore peace."

 _That… doesn't answer my question, Spikey Hair. It sounds all wise and shit, but there's really nothing there that actually helps. I think he's just muddling through all of this._

"Now, see this screen here?"

It was a picture of Silver, with Japanese all around it, looks like a profile with history and stuff (can't read any of it though), and on the left was a black window with lines of text, words coloured in a weird fashion.

He's tapping on the multi-coloured part.

"If x equals float dot infinite…" It's computer code, so I hastily abandon my attempts to read it.

He's still tapping at a certain part, though. I humour him and try to read it. "So, x equals that big function there. Okay."

"Put simply, that x was equal to this, here."

He pulls up a console window. "This is what I expected, and what I got."

"Activation successful. Subject acquired at level 1 (t = 5, q = 21.2). EMG shutdown process in five seconds," I read, looking highly puzzled, but expecting there to be a point to all this. "Reported destination is x=524125.3500002, y=2444632.7310000…"

"That x setting was off. It should have been 524125.35. Without the 2 at the end," he tells me flatly. "There was a rounding error."

I look at him with as much disdain as I can muster. "You are _kidding_ me. I'm dying of radiation poisoning because you rounded a number wrong?"

He rolls his eyes. "No, _I_ rounded up fine, the _computer_ rounded up wrong. It's like, divide 1 by 9, you get 0.1 recursive. Multiply that by 9, you get 0.9 recursive, not 1.0. It's a really tiny error, but makes a big difference. Well, this error was a bit larger than that example, but…"

I'm still not sure how to handle this idiocy. "So a _millionth_ of a number was off by _two_ and he appeared next to me?"

He nods, slowly. "And if it makes you feel better, I wasn't impressed either. In fact all I wasn't even… eh, never mind. Let's get you set up."

"You're not going to spawn me inside a bush or something are you?"

"You're not a forest lover?" He quips. "You don't like to eat your greens?"

"Oi." I scowl at his humour, flipping off my rucksack. I'm not in the mood – my headache has gotten worse and I'm starting to feel really cold. "Just hurry up, I'm starting to get that fever you were talking about."

"Okay. Just sit… anywhere but here, and I'll work on it."

Silver doesn't look confused anymore. He looks like he's gotten so lost that he no longer cares about what's transpiring at all, and he's just patiently waiting to wake up. Just like me, I guess. I flop down onto a nearby sofa. Surprisingly comfortable.

Two minutes pass, and I grow bored of watching him frantically typing more coloured text in. "Do you have wifi?"

"No, it interferes with the equipment. Hold on, I'll see if I can activate it."

"How long are you going to be doing this?"

"No idea." He runs his hand through his hair, looking tired. "An hour? Five hours? I'm reverting a process that didn't exactly go _right_ when I _thought_ it would. I'm going to have to change the entire floating point model to something more precise, _and_ I have to switch the entire universe around."

"And that's big?" I look over the Powerwall. It's like a metre cubed in distance, looks like it really _could_ power a house. Looks like a lot of laptop batteries, actually.

Oddly, there's not much by way of unrecognised Big Machinery. There's no visible Gateway to Alternate Reality, and no sign of Loki's Tesseract or pentagrams scrawled in blood. I expected something more _dramatic_ to rip a hole in reality – not a single guy with his home computers and a bit of flair.

Well, he hadn't exactly set up any portal equipment in my house either. Maybe the entrance required just as little. Made sense.

"Yes, it's kinda big." He pauses for thought, and then waves his hand dismissively. "Well, not big as in, nothing like some things I've done, but as far as potential error and the catastrophes that it would cause… yes, it's big." He exhales deeply, clicking the mouse with a swish of his hand. "Okay, wifi's up, the password is… eh, just gimme your phone."

I hand it to him, still thinking things over while absently watching him tap away. As long as he doesn't get on my tumblr, he shouldn't think I'm weird.

"You're weird."

 _God damn it._

* * *

He's sitting there. I just realised that the tapping had stopped a while ago. He's just looking at things, slowly scrolling, and my breath hitches as I realise in every single line, a single character out would mean I could be put in the wrong place. And this is the moment he checks his work.

A few times up until now, he's offered me tea and made himself some – yes, like the British we were – but he's never really moved otherwise, just sitting there typing.

Silver has actually gone to sleep in the other couch, as bored as I was, but apparently not confident enough to disturb either of us for chitchat. I find it odd that he did. He's not Kakashi, he's not strong or has a personality like him, but no one else in the Naruto world looks like him.

 _Is it Kakashi's son? Did he have a son?_ I use the wifi to check, but there's no sign of it. Not even that woman with the eye-mind… mind eye… _thing_ … she never turned up later.

 _Maybe he was_ _ **going**_ _to have a kid?_ _If that was the case, then this couldn't be the Naruto creator's world. The guy who created Naruto… what's his name, Kishimoto? He's already finished thinking about his universe, if I was following Trench's reasoning._

Actually, he wasn't wearing a trench coat any more. Under the trench coat he apparently was just wearing a spiral-blue tie-dye t-shirt and jogging bottoms. He wasn't even that old, he looked to be in his twenties. Not exactly muscular, but then, computer guys don't tend to be, but he wasn't overweight.

Kinda liked the t-shirt, to be honest, but I wanted a lab coat. _Damn you, conform to my expectations!_

Now looking at Silver, taking into account my easy over-powering earlier and his mask within easy reaching distance, it was tempting to reveal his face… _wait a minute. Maybe because chakra didn't exist in our universe, (at least, not like Narutoverse's chakra), that was why he was underpowered? He appeared here with no chakra?_

It seemed that way, but there was that technique he did overnight. Was it some sort of illusion? No… there was no chakra in my brain for him to trick, plus I had walked out of the room while he was doing it, and he didn't exactly follow me.

It had gone, though. The smell had faded, from what my poor hangover/irradiated/dumbass brain could remember. So what had he done?

I don't suppose I could ask him. I didn't want to lose the opportunity to pull off the mask by waking him up, plus my Japanese was… yeah.

I've never seen Kakashi wear a scarf around his head, though. What happened to his forehead protector? When he was too young to have a forehead protector, he was also too young to have the Sharingan, so there'd be no point covering it with such ferocity.

Plus, he became Chuunin at six or something, and this kid was about my age. The troublesome age of thirteen, definitely a traumatic experience – the age where you get ripped from your universe and shoved into another universe, one where everyone speaks some weird language.

Come to think of it, he spoke Japanese – I'd be going somewhere everyone spoke Japanese too. Same boat as him, everyone speaking gibberish.

I had better return here quickly, or I'll have shinobi on my butt demanding my name and purpose and I wouldn't have a clue how to answer. Much less _what_ to answer. 'I'm from another universe and you're all fictional' will go down about as well as a helium balloon.

"Okkkkayyy…" Computer Mad Scientist Weirdo Ruining My Life says slowly, "I think I got it."

 _I need to rework the name for him. Something catchier and more offensive._ I eye him suspiciously. "So I'm not gonna appear in a bush?"

"Probably not," he reassures me.

 _"Probably?"_ I echo, highly unimpressed.

"It's very, very, very unlikely, but I never call anything impossible."

 _One of_ _ **those**_ _people, huh._ Silver is stirring as I'm talking. "Before I go, who is this person?"

Life Ruiner analyses him. "Oh, this is a character from the Narutoverse, or rather, from a particular branch of it. I originally brought him out the universe to explain something to him and assign a um… mission of sorts. But since you going back is time-critical, you're going first."

"And if it breaks?" I ask him.

He shrugs. "You're already dying slowly. What's the worst that can happen?"

"I die with even more pain than right now?" I didn't feel a lot of pain, surprisingly. Maybe because the damage was mostly internal – gamma radiation was the most penetrating which meant it could pass right through you or get absorbed at any part of your insides. But I didn't like his casual attitude.

"You shouldn't really be in pain," he says concernedly, and then the concern vanishes back to dismissive. "But it's irrelevant since I don't have any painkillers and we're just about ready to go anyway."

"What happens if you get radiation sickness from being in my room?"

He shrugs again. "Don't worry about me, there's plenty of room in my head for that."

I blink at him. First time I've seen someone dismiss their own health like that. This guy seems very… ahead of things. Like he was already done with the issue two seconds after I've raised it; he'd already considered it, analysed it, and finished dwelling on it, way before I even brought it up.

So, the question is, how does his machine work?

In movies they have giant machinery, a huge control panel of levers... He did have like two screens, but...

"How is the transfer going to work?"

"I wire myself up to a neural activity scanner, go to sleep, and the program should access my memory of you, calculate everything needed to pull you into the Naruto world, and transfer you. You shouldn't have to move."

I pause. "Wait, your brain is used as part of this?"

"Not all of it, but yes. To make certain we can communicate I'm going to have to track your neural activity in the sixth dimension."

"What's that mean? The _sixth_ dimension?"

He nods quickly. "Yes, the fifth is more of a connection to the sixth, they're both infinitesimally small. Once I map your identity it'll be no problem for the computer to find you in this world."

"And then?"

"No idea what it looks or feels like to be transferred. You'll have to ask Silver." We both glance over at the snoozing mini-Kakashi. "But time is short. I'll put you to sleep during the transfer as well, should be easy since you're sick. We can talk more about this then."

He reached down under the desk and bought out a metal cage that was vaguely helmet-shaped. Outside it were several wires connected up to points around the brain, and bare cables were everywhere. Frankly, it looked like very shoddy workmanship.

Spikey Hair Life Ruiner hands me the helmet-cage. "I'll wire you up and see what I can do."

I try putting it on, but it slips everywhere and all the points are actually kinda irritating on my scalp... not that the tips are sharp, but it's shaped like an upwards-down T, with flat exposed copper... the polished metal and lack of friction makes my hair feel greasy.

He takes over after a few seconds, forcing the helmet down and making each copper pole painfully tight on my head. I glare and wince with each adjustment. "Ow… And how does it track me?"

Spikey Hair raises an eyebrow. "The explanation to that is fancy, complicated, and I plan to publish my research later, so I'm not saying. Basically, you ever watched The Matrix?"

"Yep." I nod, instantly raising my sceptical level fify points. _Who hasn't seen it. It's pretty iconic. Plus, it was based of the anime Ghost in the Shell. But I call BS on whatever he says next…_

He grins. "It's like that pill, except you don't have to swallow a mirror."

Then the 'fancy' stuff begins. Besides the helmet, I haven't seen any more equipment, but in reality, there's lots of little black boxes and exposed circuits everywhere around the room, none of them much bigger than a couple of inches. He goes to each one, pressing buttons, plugging the wires in, going back to the computer between each one.

I listen as he half-explains what he's doing, more like thinking out loud than actually telling me. "Tracker program, run… hmm, sensor miscalibration. Of course, you're not me, it'll need adjustments. I'll have to override all those parameters back to dubious, delete all the temp files… or switch to second profile, but I don't have a profile system yet…"

And back into the code he goes, before fifteen minutes pass while I idly use my phone to check my tumblr, and snort at the phandom and other fanclubs I have been dragged into kicking and screaming… I mean joined.

There is tumblr weirdness, then there is the weirdness of the Hetalia fandom.

"Alright, it does seem to show as non-configured now. Let's see, I'll just profile it Amy, and I'll have to set up a subconscious long-term memory storage for your backstory on a delay timer, backslide the memory access by a few days…"

There he goes again. He starts sounding like he finished something, and then he trails off while going into something else. It's like there's a giant list he's going through and he can only see one at a time.

My ability to understand it is a bit… well, lacking. He jams terms together like Dr Who; one second you're in perfect clarity, everything makes sense, the next it's all two-way biological metacrisis extenuated by a regeneration subreplication, the Doctor's doing something clever again and you just go along with it.

The clicking of the keyboard stops and he sighs. "Okay, ready to go."

" _Finally_ ," I sigh back, closing the tabs.

He fixes me with a hard look, but with his explosive hairstyle, much of the stern emphasis is lost. "We're on a tight schedule, Amy. Excluding your apparent death at some point soon, I'm not a hundred percent sure I can get everything set up for you in time." He gestures at the sleeping silver-haired boy. "I always planned for Silver to get here and we'll have all the time in the world to get things explained to him and send him back. Right now, I'm surprised he's sleeping."

"What makes you say that?"

"He just came from the Narutoverse, a variant where Naruto loses."

"He loses?"

"Things develop differently."

"You're not explaining things. In the real Narutoverse, he wins."

"You're not going into the Narutoverse. I mean, not the canon one."

"Where am I going?"

He grins again, that happy 'I'm a genius, and this will confuse you' look. "You're basically going into a world that's within my head. My subconscious runs your entire universe."

I blink at him. "How the hell does that work? A universe can't fit inside your head!"

"No, but imagination is exponential. If you imagine your imagination is stronger, and you believe that right to a subconscious level, it will actually get stronger. I can't consciously retain all of it, of course, but I don't need to.

"Look at it this way: your eyes, both of them, are about six hundred megapixels _each_. They work at about twenty-four frames per second, or going up to two hundred for some people in the army. That's an absolutely _massive_ amount of data, but you still process it without even thinking about what you're seeing. Your ability to process an environment is mostly subconscious; only new things will require conscious effort."

"I… see?" _I don't get it at all, but I'll act like I do._ I try to dumb it down to real logic. "So your subconscious is basically super-powerful… mine too? And you basically tell your brain what to think?"

He nods, smiling in that scientist-explaining-breakthrough way. "Pretty much. What happens when you flood your brain with information? Say," he waves his hand vaguely, "you binge on a series."

"I dream a bit of that series…" I'm kinda seeing what he's getting at. "And I wander about in a daze for a while. Sometimes."

He nods again, rapidly. "It's because if you flood your conscious, your subconscious handles it. You can even force things down to a bodily level, like some martial artists do. That's why kung fu has this big 'meditation' thing; if your subconscious is thinking about something else, the kung fu-y thought process can't immerse down further, so you have to clear your mind. The disconnect between reality and fantasy is negated for a good part, which is why you get a daze while your brain recalibrates and gets back on track."

I nod, smiling as I finally understand. It does explain things I had wondered about. "I get it."

He nods a third time, eyes drifting afar. "The subconscious is ridiculously powerful. It's incredibly taxing on a computer to recognise objects in a _single image_ for an _eight_ -megapixel camera, yet your brain processes far more _instantly_. It's because of the sixth dimension, which contains your reality."

"My reality?" I repeat dubiously.

"Everyone sees people as only parts of who they are. If you go around hugging people while internally hating it, the general opinion is that you are really a touchy-feely person, but it's not true. The only place the truth is within your mind…" he taps his head, "your reality. Insanity comes when your reality doesn't match up enough with other people's; you fall out of sync and can't perform normally. When you overload your brain with an imaginative reality, say bingeing from earlier, the universes overlap and you confuse yourself."

I nod, realising what he's getting at. "That's why there's so many weirdoes who try doing Naruto hand seals in public."

"Exactly. They watch too much and traits carry over. But!" He holds up a finger to pause. "We obviously still remember the entire universe. You can see that in any anime 'who versus who' combo; people are certain one can beat the other. It's hard to merge the universe, say One Piece's Haki and Naruto's chakra; could a genjutsu affect someone who had Haki? Etcetera. The realities don't mix well because the core component, the power, the reason behind the story, is inherently different."

I frown. "But One Piece is about finding the one piece."

He shakes his head. "No, it's about getting strong enough to find it. And how do you do that? Haki. Even Lee has to use chakra to become a shinobi, when he's got a damaged chakra system."

"Fair enough." I nod, drinking it in.

"Basically, I have in my head," Tap tap, "several stories and universes. I'm going to insert you into my Naruto world, and then pull you out."

I nod again. "Right, but what if you can't pull me out?"

Mad Hair frowns. "If I can put you in, it stands that I can pull you back out. Frankly, I was expecting the pulling out not to work; it's more difficult. The reason I'm going to track your signal is so I can find you in there; not that I won't know where you're going, but you'll be moving."

"Won't I be a slave to your will? If I'm in your head, I mean."

He gets that explaining-breakthrough passionate look in his eyes again. "No, because it's subconscious, not conscious. The thing that runs my universe, the core element, is the characters themselves – it's character-driven. Unlike plot-driven stories, where the characters are slaves to some higher goal and the environment is developed or altered, along with their personalities, to match the plot, so they _have_ to follow the will of the creator, my one is completely character-driven."

 _A story that runs itself by the will of the characters?_ I must have a very funky expression on my face right now. "Then how do you know what's going to happen?"

"I don't," he says simply. "But once you're in there, when I'm asleep and my conscious is offline for the most part, the next logical thing I will see is you appearing in that universe. At that point, it will be difficult to communicate with you, but that shouldn't be necessary. Just stay where you are and I'll see about pulling you back out."

He rolls his eyes. "Obviously, if you move from there, don't worry, it's my universe and I can still track you," he gestures to the helmet, "which is what this is for, so I get your signature, but chances are it won't take long. I pulled Silver out by part of his chakra makeup; his design is to cross dimensions, so while he was doing that, I reached for the shallowest chakra signature."

"Okay."

"Good. Watch this screen, I'll start the tracker program."

I watch, as images show up on the screen, one after the other. It seems entirely random; flowers, icons, pictures, blocks of text… I ignore all that and just look at the pictures.

Pretty pictures.

The urge to say something sarcastic is overwhelming, but then I feel it.

A sort of dull ache… except it's not an ache, it's more like a _presence_ , like a ball of gas that's started pushing onto my side, yet going inside me. Like walking through hot air, and feeling yourself heat up, except it's pushing on the inside.

 _It's hard to describe, alright!?_

The feeling gets stronger, but I try to let it happen, letting it push across. Nothing happens when it crosses my vision or my head; of course, I had a headache, so I wouldn't detect anything subtle anyway… but it's really odd feeling it.

I mostly feel cold from the fever, to be honest, but this presence doesn't really have any heat or cold… it's just _there_ , easily sensed as some foreign thing. It doesn't feel wrong, it just… eh.

I give up on explanations and focus on the pictures, ignoring the growing feeling of intrusion.

"Isolation 98%... Isolation complete." The text shows. "Setting up mental link."

Now _that_ is different. Instead my head feels like it's being run over with a ray; like sunlight on your skin but without the burning factor. My headache begins to wobble all over the place – getting worse, better, suddenly much worse, then suddenly gone…

…and back. _This must be what brain surgery feels like._

A new line of text appears. **"Brain surgeon (p=60)"**

I blink at it. "Wait, this is reading my thoughts?"

 **"Saying: read book (p=52), emotions: shock (p=32), confusion (p=31)"**

Mad Hair nods. "It's tracking your brain's activity, mapping what you think _here_ into the other dimensions."

 **"Heard (C1 name = Mad (p=12)): Track (p=65), animal activity (p=53), compass (p=25), far away (p=15), emotions: bored (p=50), excited (p=27)"**

"What is this p stuff?"

"It's probability, percentage," Spikey explains quickly, running his hand through his hair.

I raise my eyebrow at it. "How long will this take?"

 **"Saying: Long bake (p=26), emotions: impatience (p=72)"**

"No idea, for me it took nearly a week until it could actually read everything properly," he explains, again dismissive.

"Great," I sigh, lying down awkwardly trying.

 **"Saying: great (p=94), emotions: heavy sarcasm (p=60), impatience (p=89)"**

"No worries; it shouldn't take as long for you." He rolls his eyes again. "It has my data to work off. For me, it was working from scratch, and it didn't recognise anything. Fortunately, our minds are pretty similar."

"How so?" I enquire flatly.

Mad Hair smiles. "We're both heavily sarcastic, we both watch anime… and we're both British."

"So we're good at making tea, queuing and complaining."

He snorts. "Did I mention the sarcasm?"

"You did," I agree, smirking.

He sighs again, looking at me thoughtfully. I felt a bit like a bug under a microscope. "At least you're still coherent. If you had gone vegetable on me, all of this scanning would be pointless, and I would have no way to communicate with you other than ripping random people out of the universe and back here, like with Silver."

"Like a messenger pigeon but with people," I summed up, smirking.

 **"That'd make me feel important (p=64)."**

 _Shut up, you._ I scowl at the screen. _Thankfully it wasn't saying it out loud, just displaying it, but still, this is actually pretty invasive technology._

He gestures at the screen, which had lost the pictures and started displaying a block of text. "To speed it up for you, read the screen, and it'll read off a small book to you. The program will display it, and you just read it. It can map easier if it's not guesswork as to what you're seeing and thinking. Once it's mapped the page over, it'll scroll to the next one."

"Repeat ad infinitum," I groaned half-heartedly, getting to work. He just rolled his eyes – again _…_ _who was the reckless teenager here exactly?_

* * *

"I'm getting too tired to carry on reading…" I mumbled, as yet _another_ page appears in front of me. Gradually, the **_p_** percentage has gone up, but it's still somewhere around 80% on average.

I lean back and stretch and a jacket nearly falls off my back. _Wait, when had he?_

Mad Spikey Hair was busy tapping away on his computer and pauses, glancing over at me. "Unfortunately, while I emphasise with you, you're still dying of radiation poisoning. If you fall asleep from tiredness, you may not wake up. It's highly likely you'll fall into a coma. Then, vegetable."

"How necessary is this reading thing? The average is 80%," I offer, trying and failing to keep the slur out of my voice. The fear _had_ retreated into 'not relevant right now, just focus hard on this and forget it', but now the disease is starting to scare me again. "Is 80% enough?"

He shakes his head, turning to face me with a serious look. "No, it's not. Would you like to arrive with 80% of your body?"

I shake my head, but it makes me nauseous. While the room swims a little, I try to put coherent thoughts together, I'm kinda short on breath. "If I arrive after the effects of radiation have already deteriorated me, even if the gamma ceases to exist… I'll still be in no place to carry on living… anyway…"

Mad Hair seems to have thought of that. "You forget you're living in a world with weird restoring medical techniques."

"Techniques that can't work on me, I have no chakra," I point out.

He's apparently thought of that as well. "You're being redefined in a world where everyone has chakra, down to the plants, and no trace of gamma. It'll be created inside you, just like gamma will be removed."

Things are starting to stabilise again in my vision. I made a mental note not to move suddenly. _Chakra created inside me?_ "That's gonna be weird."

I mentally imagined all my cells suddenly rewriting with new chakra capillaries… **_damn_** _that's gonna be weird._

He puts his hand on my cheek, looking at me concernedly while his tone remains indifferent and matter-of-fact. "Don't think about 'weird'. Think about 'ooh, cool, shiny, I can use chakra and blow up shit'."

I give him a frown, which is hard without moving your head or tensing up too hard. "I'm a girl. I'm not meant to be keen on blowing up stuff."

Mad Hair shrugs. "Fine, blow it up with confetti and flower petals instead of fireballs."

"Can't you transport me there and define me as completely healthy?"

He shakes his head. "It's a physical transfer; it's already specific to you. Only general definitions will work subconsciously," he vaguely explains. "I don't know what it's like to be you, I want to send you as exact as possible."

He analyses at my unimpressed expression and switches tactics. "As a separate point, I would have to control your body to a fine science to modify it. Do you really want an anime fan in control of your body proportions?"

I look down at my miniscule development in the upper area and hum thoughtfully. "Hmm… are you one of the oppai leagues?"

"Nope. Flat is justice. Like what you've got going on there, by the way," he comments offhandedly.

"YOUUU…!" Thankfully I had put on my shoes from earlier to walk over to his house, so I make good use of them.


	4. Editing

**Disillusioned**

 ** _Chapter 4: Editing_**

* * *

 *****WARNING: ERRORS DETECTED*****

'!Stack Overflow reading virtual memory at 0x0089D1EA: timeline recalibration resulted in invalid dimensional connection; redirected connection to new timeline

failed translate "On'nanokodesu"; language unrecognised; module translation renewing in unset state (a = b = 0), G module active to auto-detect

errors detected; chapter n post delay extended where n = 5 in profile -1, dimension 7, "web", dumping errors to chapter header

dimension stable after edit; program continuing

* * *

 **Profile 0 "Phi"**

She's not doing well. I had hoped the release would emit nothing harmful at all, or that it'd be miniscule levels – after all, I had originally set the destination to be in another room in my house. A shielded room, yes, but we're talking slightly thicker and denser walls, not gamma-proof – nowhere near shielded enough to protect me from that type of radiation. Plus, I'd have to open the door to wave a Geiger counter in there, which means any stray radiation would hit me anyway. It had taken me a day to reverse the problem down to a physical location.

Frankly, I thought the test had failed.

I don't like seeing people suffer, least of all the young. Problem was, if things had come about so he appeared where he was meant to, I probably would have got a lethal dose of radiation too, and I had no escape route like she's using.

How do you go into your own head? Inception made it look easy, but they had a real body still dreaming. I would be moved physically, so my body would vanish.

Chances are if I made the jump to my own universe it would have immediately started collapsing. Effectively, with no mind to support it, my imagination's universes would stop existing. Every time an author dies with an unfinished book, their characters die with them – instantaneously and thus painlessly, I'd imagine, but it's still horrible to think of…

Several times now I've pinched her and she's not reacted, not even feeling it. She's going comatose in front of me – it still surprises me she's still awake and coherent when her body's degrading and shutting down on her. She's making sarcastic quips when her eyelids are drooping and I just wish my program would work faster.

In my head, I know all the code. If a bug pops up at some stage, I will know that stage. I know what that stage is meant to do and what comes next. Frankly, it's not out of a question a bug will emerge, what with all the changes I had to hurriedly make to the program for her to be able to use it.

I had planned a full month or so _at least_ to plan and test. The universe the boy came from had ended anyway – sort of, more like that _timeline_ had, and the next was set to begin when he landed, it was always defined that way since the universe was first imagined. There would be months where I could modify the code and test at my leisure and there was no reason to speed up, no universe waiting on him.

And besides, the electromagnetic radiation was meant to be a much longer wavelength – more of a light-show with perhaps some x-rays popping out (and x-rays took a _lot_ to be lethal) but now I had a dying child on my hands. Something had slipped, some parameter and some factor I'd not considered, but I could not for the life of me work out what it was.

But that was to be expected. If I had known about the bug before it happened, I would have fixed it before the test. After I'd sent her back I'd be going over the code with a fine-toothed comb – I reckon I had another two tests, if the characters interacted as I thought they would.

The machine was in its early stages, yes, and perhaps it would be better if I had survived the radiation mistake to improve my design – no one else knew how to come up with this sort of machine, after all – but I can't stand to see someone suffer because of me.

I was no doctor; I had no idea how long she'd last.

I'm not panicking, since my response to most panic scenarios is to treat them like scenarios where you must be meticulously accurate. Panicking means more mistakes, which means more panicking; and if everyone else is panicking around you while you try and fix things, it's not only distracting, they may break something and make the scenario even worse. So I'm being calm as can be, brushing off every concern, while inwardly there's a churning feeling and I'm trying not to sweat everywhere.

She seems calm enough, but she's probably just being brave like me. Thankfully she's gone numb so she's probably not feeling much pain. Her nervous system must be doing something about that.

Stupid thing is: I have to _fall asleep_ to send her there. How am I going to do that when my mind's swimming with all the code, trying to mentally figure out if I made a mistake, and I'm concerned about her?

And I'm not going to be able to change my mental universes in a big way. The subconscious will just reject the contradiction, and then reject the universe, dissolve it entirely… and then rewrite a new one to accommodate the change, effectively killing everyone in the old one.

Like rebooting a self-aware AI, or if someone cloned you and implanted your memories into the clone – it wouldn't be _you_ , even though they'd have nothing that would actually separate them from you, mentally or physically.

And weeks later, someone will point out the flaw. A reader will be sitting there and realise _there's something about this universe that doesn't make sense_. A story flaw, a problem with the plot, a fact overlooked, something that should be mentioned in the beginning completely ignored.

While it was true the new universe would clone everyone in the old, it wasn't a _true_ clone unless you were the creator of that person – only the creator would know every detail about a person.

I didn't create Amy. So if I saw the contradiction, I'll sit there, look at the computer, and cry, knowing she died.

She died, but more than that, she was _erased_. Replaced with something my imagination could come up with for the rebooted universe; a warped copy, because as strongly as I felt about it, I could not recreate her perfectly. Even her mother or her closest friend would have a hard time.

And as I'm sitting here trying to work out if I can speed this up and get her someplace she'll recover, it's killing me knowing I have to make the program perfectly, I have to have made the universe perfectly, I have to fall asleep quickly, and the program may screw up despite my best efforts and even if it _didn't_ … will she survive?

* * *

 **Profile 1 "Amy"** **restored**

...

 **Complete.**

 **100% isolated. Memory imprint accuracy maximised. Duplication of memory estimated at 521 terabytes, excluding cascaded exponential effect. Continue with memory copy?**

The dull-eyed girl slurred something and slumped to the side, nearly falling off the chair, dimly aware she was caught. "Wake up Amy, you're nearly there."

Nothing coherent came out her mouth, but the program happily read it.

 **"I bet." (p=100)**

"Yui, activate speech access."

Amy struggled to see the screen, where an animated girl appeared in an explosion of colour. "Yui system online."

"Yui, activate full control protocol. Overclock hardware to maximum, disable page file, and increase frequency on the RAM to max."

"Commands recognised. Commands completed."

"Close every program and service that's nonessential to dimension machine dot exe."

"Command recognised. Command success," Yui's voice repeated.

"Set Yui core to minimum."

"Command recognised. Command success," the same voice said, the animated figure freezing

"Yui, disable for three minutes." The Life Ruiner sat down, flexing his fingers. "Right. Activate the subconscious trigger, delay the analyser by two minutes, switch profile to me... set up Yui access… oh, and turn off the wifi. There we go."

He paused, about to get up when he had another thought. "And let's tie Amy's consciousness to the dimension instead of the timeline. Put her somewhere she can be instantly analysed and treated… yep, there makes sense. And lock that translation module in."

Amy was dimly aware of being moved. She could see him moving her across the room, but it was so distant she felt like it was happening to someone else. Each touch was so dull she couldn't feel where it was actually pressing.

"Just stay awake, Amy. I've no idea if you'll die or go comatose if you fall asleep, but stick with it."

* * *

Amy blinked.

One minute she was feeling really distant, the next she was fully awake.

She blinked again, looking around. She was still in Mad Hair Life Ruiner's room, all the computer screens off. At some point he had removed the helmet-cage from her head, and now he was sleeping on the sofa with it on.

A single screen was on. Amy stepped forward and read it, each footstep completely soundless. She felt a tugging backwards, but ignored it.

 **"Activating dimensional rift. Transport subject's brain activity normalising… failure. Forcibly normalising… complete."**

She frowned. "Wait, it can control my brain activity?" She looked back to the tugging, and saw her body lying there, the skin starting to peel off.

Suddenly the tugging vanished and her body suddenly lost its sense of gravity and started to float gently upwards. " **Consciousness link terminated."**

She suddenly felt tiny and scared, like she had just been put in the middle of an ocean and was completely lost.

The tugging reactivated in a completely different direction, and her sense of gravity returned. **"Consciousness link reassigned to dimension: profile 0, dimension 56."**

She analysed the screen, focusing hard, knowing the lines would appear an instant before the command carried out. A new line popped up.

 **"Activating dimensional switch. Transport 0 of 2 completed…"**

In an instant, the world changed around her. Faster than a blink, the room vanished and she was in a different room; everything switched in an instant, from the air temperature to the light levels instantly changing. A black-haired man and women stood there, the man wearing a Konoha headband and scowling. The woman had her hands on her hips and it was obvious they were arguing, even if the Japanese flew right over her head.

 _That easily? That quickly? That's just weird. Every single anime with transport I've read had… well, slower and more colourful transports than that. Never mind their giant machinery portal setups… real life is so lacking in dramatic flair._

She guessed it was her spirit that was seeing things like earlier, as neither reacted to her being there. On impulse she spoke. "Heyo."

Yep, not a twitch of a reaction… wait, no, the man's frown vanished and he sounded surprised. He turned to look at her, but looked right through her.

Then his eyes spun, turning red, Sharingan tomoe appearing and spinning, and he jolted in shock. Amy jolted as well, not expecting that sudden eye change.

Before he or Amy could do anything else, her body appeared, making him jolt again and step back hurriedly, pushing his wife behind him.

Amy looked down at her body. Obviously she couldn't see if there was radiation still coming off it… but her rucksack had come as well, good.

The tugging changed… now it felt like she was being pulled in two… stretching thin…

Suddenly her vision went black and all the pain suddenly got worse. She was back in the body. _Damn it, if I don't move, they can go through my stuff._

She doubted they would attack her though.

Sure enough, amid much yelling, some others arrived, and she _felt_ rather than saw the glowing green hands pass over here, a gentle inward pushing and probing buzz just outside the hands.

 _Wait, if my body's too decayed… I'm still going to die._

And the last thought she had was _I never knew that Life Ruiner's real name._

* * *

Her vision blurred back.

Her body felt weird. _Sore, sensitive... No, this doesn't feel right… it feels… like it had just died._

She opened her eyes – there was an overwhelming feeling of disconnection, and something about it was _really sad_. Amy didn't cry though, she kept her eyes open and looked around.

Well, tried. She couldn't even move her head. It was like her fingers were covered in grease and she was fumbling at a joystick, trying to move it the way she wanted. Her neck instantly felt like it was straining.

She settled for looking around, her eyes still blurry. Despite blinking, it didn't clear up much; things slid into focus then back out. _Useless, can't get the staff nowadays._

Since she had been transported with her body, that radiation must have ruined a lot more than she noticed. How long had Mad Hair Life Ruiner spent trying to sleep?

A small part of her emphasised with him – she would never be able to sleep under the same conditions. Forget it. _I'm not exactly a worrier, but at night, the problems just line up and pop into my head one by one, each barging in front of the other and demanding attention._

She focused on her surroundings. It looked like the black haired man and women were in front of her, but the woman was lying on a bed and holding Amy in her arms.

It looked like it was the same house, but everything was blurring in and out of her vision; like she couldn't control her optic nerve properly. Then there was that buzzing all over her body.

But something felt off. The woman's head was far too close and big for comfort and with her head at that angle… her feet should be touching the floor. But instead she just felt a blanket all around her, no floor under her feet… which meant one huge blanket or...

 _No, I've shrunk._

One look at the woman's exhausted, but excited face and she groaned, finally putting the pieces together. _Yep, I'm a newborn child, and for some reason born to the two nearest to me when I landed originally. What happened to my old body? And what about my rucksack… well, I assume both have vanished into the ether._

So when the man brought a very familiar rucksack up in front of her blurry eyes, she blinked in surprise, instinctively trying to reach for it.

"What's this?" the mother asked.

"I found it downstairs. It appeared as soon as you went into labour."

Despite her frantic struggles, which turned into weak flails, her new 'father' reached into the bag and took out her phone. Instantly her struggles multiplied as he analysed it, Sharingan gazing confusedly.

"But what _is_ it?"

"It looks like very advanced technology. Like a radio. There are weight differences all over it; it's packed full of circuits and the like."

"Ah!" he pressed the only button on there, and it turned on. "Huawei? Androidu?"

 _OI!_ she mentally screamed.

"GA!" her baby body finally managed to produce.

They both blinked at her, gazes full of adoration… and that underlying fear you have when you're holding something fragile and new. Then the father turned back to the device, too curious for his own good. "Hm…"

He pressed the button again… and nothing happened. He held it down… it beeped as Accessibility for the Blind turned on, making him frown. When he pressed again to login, it failed and the phone complained, **"No key pressed."**

"Eeeh?" Amy found it cute that her new 'mother' wrapped her hands protectively around her when her phone spoke. Like it was a big scary monster.

The perplexed father held the button down again. **"No key pressed."**

The mother frowned. "'Naoki desu'? Is that what it's saying?"

"Hai," he agreed slowly.

"Naoki… that's her name, then!"

He blinked at her, stunned. "You're naming her after some tech that comes out of a bag?"

"It's a gift from the heavens! You see how much she reacted to it."

"Yes, but that's going a bit far, isn't it?" He inspected her expression and sighed, acquiescing. "Why did I marry someone so superstitious…?"

She glared at him. "Hey, it's not like you had any names for her. You had all these great boy names and then as soon as you know she's a girl…"

"Fine, fine, we'll call her Naoki!"

Amy rolled her eyes… inwardly, as her body barely responded to her attempt. Hopefully he'd work out how to turn off her phone or she'd have a flat battery and chances are there wasn't any place to recharge it. She doubted they followed the various European Standards in the Naruto world.

"It works anyway, Naoki is 'docile tree' and we're in 'the village hidden in the leaves'. She's very docile… she's not even crying."

"You're right…" They both gazed at her, and she squirmed awkwardly, wanting to turn her face away, but all that happened was her neck ached.

Thankfully he did turn off her phone. Or rather, he fiddled with the tech, holding down buttons until it turned off. He didn't get past the lock screen, and the turning off seemed to scare him, so he looked around hurriedly, saw his wife was occupied with the new baby, and put it back into the rucksack, zipping it up quickly.

Amy snorted… inwardly. He thought he'd broken it. Trench Coat had let her charge it up before she'd arrived, so it had full battery power, but batteries didn't retain their charge forever. Who knew how long it'd last? As a baby- … _Wait a minute, I'm not going to be breastfed, am I?_

She gazed around wildly. _I'm not into that shit. That's pretty dank even for a fanfiction world. Save me, various Naruto gods that weren't fully touched upon in the series!_ she called out in her head.

A few seconds passed, and she imagined a tumbleweed rolling by mentally… _and wait, if I'm in Trench's head, he is the creator and god of this world. An anime fan's subconscious presented with an intimate boob question._

 _Please don't let this go dank. Don't make me suppress memories before I'm even 1 year old. SAVEEE MEEEE~~~_


	5. The sarcastic treatment of gods

**Disillusioned**

 _ **Chapter 5: The sarcastic treatment of gods**_

* * *

 **E/N:** Yui:  
Note: Errors exist in this chapter. An administrator will be contacted to correct this.  
Note: Profile 1, Character 0 has lodged a request.

* * *

 **Profile 1: Uchiha Naoki (うちは** **, 直樹** **)**

Although her new body felt all sore and like it was slowly unwinding, making her feel very tired, Amy persisted in staying awake.

The gods had favoured her. Now she calmed a little, she had noticed something off – no midwives, and no doctors. She was a home birth with no one medical around.

 _Why?_ she mentally wondered. _Why aren't they being careful with my birth? Why aren't families and friends hanging around?_

 _I'm not born to one of those ostracised families am I? No, they're Uchiha… not Shisui's parents? I haven't replaced Shisui have I?_

The mother stopped her cooing at a barely-responsive baby and glared back at her husband. "Don't just fiddle with that rucksack. Put it aside and go get a doctor!"

Dutifully the father left in a puff of chakra smoke, and a minute later returned with a nurse – yep, a literal nurse, dressed in nurse outfit and looking very annoyed.

"Don't Body Flicker me again, Uchiha Tanoshii, or I will have your head!"

The father looked unruffled by the death threats. "Yes, yes, just inspect her?"

"You can't just pull me out of the hospital and drag me halfway across the village," the nurse complained but walked over to inspect regardless.

Amy jerked as the cold stethoscope went over her chest.

"She's… healthy…" The nurse sounded surprised.

 _Oi, don't tell me I've got massive genetic diseases. No fair._

Tanoshii was frowning angrily. "You assured me she was a stillborn."

The nurse frowned, keeping her concentration on the tiny patient. "There was no detectable heartbeat when she was in the womb. Even a Hyuuga inspected it. I was as certain as I could be."

"…Don't say it."

"It's a miracle."

"AAaaaahhh!" The wife exclaimed, beaming excitedly, sparkles suddenly forming around her. "My superstitions were right again! Hurry you, go downstairs and offer thanks to the gods."

He groaned. "That would take all day. You have too many statues."

"I'm a collector." She preened a little. "It's not the worst hobby."

 _This family has some good banter going on,_ Amy considered, idly noticing her body was sucking its thumb.

"It _is_ a bad hobby. Now we have to spend too much time on offering to all of them so none are offended. You've increased our requirements."

The wife shrugged unapologetically. "I don't want to risk missing the right god."

Amy wondered if they had a Trench Coat God. She snorted again. _He'll be pretty easy-going as far as gods go. I wonder if he would actually notice them giving thanks to him if he_ _ **was**_ _a god here?_

That made her head hurt. _Actually… how did that work? My head hurts, but really, I don't exist. In the real world. Spikey Hair is just another person in seven billion, and I'm just a part of his thought process._

Ouch. Her brain complained about it. Thinking about thinking within someone's thoughts. The recursion was too much.

Then something occurred to her. In her old body, she couldn't understand what they were saying, what little they said in front of her before it died. She didn't know Japanese after all.

But as a newborn, she understood it perfectly. It was still Japanese… she could hear the syllables in Japanese… but the translation to English was effortless, like she knew the language already. Something else had changed beside her body – something with her communication center, she would guess, but her knowledge of the brain was… well, minimal.

It wasn't like schools taught you things that you'd need if you got stuffed into someone else's universe.

 _Come to think of it, with this new body… I don't have to worry about periods! YATTTTTAAAAA!_ Her body squirmed and squealed excitedly as she inwardly freaked out. _That is something I am_ _ **not**_ _going to miss. RIP pain, tampons, pads and all that bull._

"She's certainly excited to be out," the nurse commented, handing her back. "As far as I can work out here, she's completely healthy."

"Hey there, Naoki," her mother cooed at her.

"Hey there back," Amy replied… but her body just went "gaaagoogeick", so… _whatever. Take it or leave it, oka-san._

Although, now she thought about it, did she want to be known as a prodigy in the Naruto world? Capable of recognising speech from birth, doing 13-year-old-level maths and whatever else there was… she had thirteen years' head start. _Ooh, then I can learn how to kill people far sooner!_

 _…wait, are they_ _ **real**_ _people? They were created inside Spikey Hair's head._

 _Wait, so was I. Am I still real?_

 _Ouch. My brain. My fake brain. My fake toddler recreated alternate-dimension brain._

 _And real brains don't actually have nerve to carry pain signals, but can get headaches anyway._

 _I think I've got like ten different reasons to have the biggest of all headaches, and mostly because they're all reasons headaches are impossible here._

 _I think my toddler brain will explode if I keep thinking about multidimensional faux-biological paradoxes… I'd better sleep._

The nurse blinked as the baby slumped asleep. "I guess she's tired out."

* * *

 **Profile 1, Character 1: Uchiha Tanoshii (うちは** **, 楽しい** **)**

"She's sleeping too much."

The nurse rolled her eyes and analysed the sleeping baby. "What's wrong then? She still looks healthy. How long has she slept for?"

"She's been asleep since you left us this morning. She never woke up."

"Ah." Megumi Shiga frowned, gesturing, and Tanoshii carefully put down Naoki. She put the stethoscope on the baby, who faintly squirmed.

"She responds to pain and discomfort, her eyes respond to light…" She turned her head to the side, opening the eyelid. "…and spin against the head's direction, so she's not got brain stem damage. I'd recommend an EEG scan and keeping her in observation."

"She's not going to die is she?" Tanoshii asked bluntly, a characteristic Uchiha frown donned.

"Where's your wife?" Megumi deflected.

"She's resting at home."

The nurse hummed as the heartrate was confirmed to be a normal rest rate with no unexpected echoes or muffling. "Does she feed?"

Tanoshii grunted, shrugging. "Yes, sort of. She's does it half-asleep. Otherwise I'd probably have come here sooner."

"You should have anyway," Megumi rebuked him.

"I don't know what's normal for babies. This is our first, you know," Tanoshii pointed out.

"Right." The nurse couldn't argue with that, so she shrugged. "I'll need to wire up an EEG scan. Wait here while I get some of my team."

It paid to be a school friend of the head nurse in a hospital. And thankfully, Megumi was also someone who was blunt at all times, and believed firmly in telling the patients exactly how it was.

Tanoshii was confident she was in good hands and that he wouldn't be fake-reassured about the situation.

* * *

In a few minutes the scan was taking place. The milling nurses frowned and tutted at the results, eventually wheeling out an EEG machine and pulling in a second one. Tanoshii was a jounin, so he could easily make out the gist of what was happening by enhanced hearing, even if he couldn't see inside. They seemed confused by the diagnosis.

Megumi eventually emerged from her lair. "Good news and bad news, Tanoshii." She gestured him inside as the other nurses filed out.

"Spill it," the jounin ordered tersely.

"Good news is I've worked out why she's asleep. Bad news, I don't know what's causing that reason."

Tanoshii nodded, reading between the lines, his eyes running over the tiny sleeping baby. "So predicting what was going to happen to her is impossible. So what's happening?"

Megumi tapped her temple. "Her cellular activity, her neuron genesis, is far higher than normal."

Tanoshii raised an eyebrow. "And what does that mean?"

Megumi held up a finger. "You make a connection between cells when you get an idea, or learn something new." She held up all four, indicating a thicker line. "The more you ascertain that idea is true, the stronger the path is."

Then Megumi turned back to Naoki. "She, on the other hand, seems to be generating a huge amount of them before she's even learnt anything, and I'm not sure why."

Tanoshii stopped her. "Erm, huge? How huge?"

Megumi looked at him flatly. "Several hundred times more than normal for her age."

Tanoshii blinked, and slumped in a nearby chair. "And that's not good."

"No… no, it's not," the nurse agreed. "Potentially, her brain could become such a mess of useless neural connections she will be mentally stunted to a huge degree, finding it difficult to memorise and make real connections with all the static. Alternatively… the pre-existing network may allow her to record and process far more data than any normal person."

"So she's either retarded, or a genius, and you're not sure which."

Megumi shrugged. "Or it might do nothing and just be an oddity that her biology compensates for."

"So she could be normal, too." Tanoshii frowned. "So basically you've got no idea."

Megumi nodded freely. She was blunt, even with admitting shortcomings. "No one here has seen it, and it's not even documented as a historical case. So yes, I have no idea."

Tanoshii frowned, analysing the newborn. He hadn't yet had time to properly bond with her. The idea of having a member of their clan retarded and stumbling around the compound dribbling would not go down well with the elders – but emotions aside he wasn't up to the idea of mercy-killing someone who might not even have a problem. Even to keep the Uchiha honour.

It'd become necessary to get rid of her if she was retarded, whether that was mercy-killing or by sending her away. Depends if the elders noticed the problem, if they did the latter was impossible.

Megumi raised the question, familiar with noble clans. "Does anyone else know it wasn't a stillborn?"

"No." Thankfully, he spent the day at home with his wife, so neither had gone out to share the news that the birth _wasn't_ a stillborn as expected. Their friends hadn't visited either, expecting a stillborn and understanding the situation should be private.

"You can keep this under wraps and see how it develops. I'm not fond of the Uchiha nobility, but you have the professional secrecy by me." The nurse gave him a gentle smile. "She needs to be fed more than usual, I'd imagine; she's probably burning a lot of energy as mental processing. And extra protein, too."

Tanoshii nodded slowly. "We're using bottled mixes, should we switch to breastfeeding?"

Megumi shook her head, straightening up and brushing down her clothes. "No, no point. The brand you have I've seen lots of babies use, they all turned out healthy. I'll get you some suitable protein and extra carbohydrates, but for the most part it's the same diet."

The jounin frowned at her. "And what are you expecting?"

The nurse put her hands on her hips and gave him an unimpressed look. "I'm expecting she'll wake up, or she'll die from her brain expanding too much and running out of room in her skull."

Tanoshii winced. Not a day old and a slow death was threatening Naoki already.

"I'm not sure when it will stop being so fast, or if it will ever stop. If she's feeding, then just treat her head delicately and wait for a change. And, I guess, make sure your wife knows about this."

Tanoshii looked away sheepishly. Megumi glared at him. "You were going to tell her she was fine, weren't you."

Tanoshii nodded slightly, still looking away. "She was so happy Naoki survived the birth… I didn't want to ruin it."

" _You're_ not ruining it. The fact this is _happening_ is ruining it," Megumi corrected waspishly. Her tone softened as her eyes ran back over the tiny patient. "She may still survive, I don't know the odds."

Tanoshii frowned back at her. "Why not? Is it really _that_ rare? Even if you haven't seen it personally…"

The head nurse sighed. "Well, I've never seen it before, or even _heard_ about it from others. Unless a Yamanaka can do something, or you know someone who's well familiar with children, or neurology… or if you could drag in Tsunade… then we're not got many options. Even with Tsunade, I'm not sure she could do anything. Brain surgery is a delicate matter, and on someone this young…"

"A Yamanaka, huh…" Tanoshii hummed thoughtfully.

The nurse nodded. "They fiddle with brain activity all the time." She pursed her lips. "Although I don't expect they ever needed to do something with a child as young as Naoki, though. Chances are they'll just give you some more information about it. If you'd like, I can give you a copy of the charts."

Tanoshii nodded shortly. "Yes, if you could."

Megumi started gathering up papers, jabbing a finger in his direction. "Do let me know if something changes, if she wakes up, her breathing or chakra flow becomes erratic… anything stabilising or destabilising." She gave a dismissive shrug. "I'm not sure I could do much if things are bad, though, slowing neural activity through medication has a high risk of mentally retarding the patient. In her case it's pretty much definite, given her age, and the fact it's not just activity but neural _growth_ that will be blocked."

Her eyes turned to the side and her voice went soft. "But we could… you know… make it painless."

Tanoshii appreciated her bluntness, even if it made the crushing sensation on his heart far worse. He detested airy promises that couldn't be kept. He flicked on his Sharingan and watched the calm flow of the chakra in his daughter's body, amazed at how small a thing could be such an impact on his life. For all the Sharingan's traits, he could barely make out anything happening in her brain.

Come yesterday he was quietly requesting a few days off from his superior, fully expecting within the week, a baby would be born, stone dead, and he'd have to bury her and comfort his wife.

Instead, she was very much alive, but severely sick.

If all they had of her was those few minutes right after she was born… it'd be so bittersweet.

* * *

"News?"

Tanoshii shrugged, making sure Yukiko had Naoki in her arms before he continued. "She's mentally advancing far faster than normal, like she's learning massive amounts, and it's conking her out. She may die."

"No. She can't," his wife insisted firmly, holding the small bundle tightly. "I won't allow it."

"It's not something you can control, Yukiko..." he began slowly.

"But the gods can!" she cut him off in a factual tone. "And we have more than enough diligence and time to serve them."

"What... are you planning?" His jounin training told him it was a coping mechanism kicking in. To deny her this would only lead to a different mechanism, and who knew what that would be?

She nodded at him. "We'll go to every shrine nearby and see which can tell us the god that gave her to us."

Her husband hummed, squashing his initial disbelief. There were some divinities in this world, one look at the Seven Guardians or the Shiki Fūjin seal and you'd know that, but how much they would actually care or respond was, in all likelihood, minimal. Even the Death God didn't budge until you waved a soul on the hook.

Still, she'd feel better if she was up and about in the sun. Better that than sitting and gazing at four walls with nothing to do but obsess over Naoki. "Fine," he agreed. "Let's do it."

And there was always that chance a god would notice them. "We have to make sure we stay close to the hospital," he reminded her.

She laid a flat look on him. "She's an Uchiha, and I just gave birth. I'm not going to be trapezing about in Iwa."

Ah, her sarcastic trait was coming back. Sarcasm and superstition – the two reasons he married her. In Uchiha parties it was always hilarious to hear her point someone's stupidity out without them even being aware of it. Since her superstition was… well, not very 'fitting for an Uchiha', it gave her all the more opportunities to wield it – pointing out how little proof they had in their _lack_ of superstition and that their funeral rites came from religion…

The two began to pack, and Tanoshii left to speak with Fugaku and the Third Hokage for permission to go out-of-village. Naturally, both would agree to it, believing he was going to be comforting his mourning wife. For all his brashness, Fugaku had a soft spot for family.

* * *

A few days later found the couple, baby in tow, visiting various Fire Nation temples.

"The temple of Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun," Tanoshii read dryly.

"Welcome!" a bald monk greeted cheerfully.

The two greeted and settled in to offer their prayers.

 _An hour later…_

Tanoshii looked up again. "The temple of Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, the god of the moon."

"Welcome!" a bald monk greeted cheerfully.

 _Forty-six minutes later…_

"The temple of Omoikane, god of wisdom and intelligence."

"Welcome!" a bald monk greeted cheerfully.

"Isn't he the same one?" Tanoshii murmured to his wife, and an elbow found its way to his ribs.

 _Several hours later…_

"The temple of Baka-no-Ahiru, the god of flat-footed ducks?" Tanoshii blinked, and tried not to smirk.

A small wind blew past him as he looked into the considerably smaller shrine. "No monk…?" he began hopefully.

"Welcome!" a bald monk greeted cheerfully, emerging out of nowhere and nonchalantly dodging the shuriken Tanoshii reflexively tossed at him.

As night began to fall, Tanoshii looked up once more. "The temple of the Trench Coat God."

"Welcome!" a bald monk greeted cheerfully.

"Damn it, how are you everywhere?"

"Kage Bunshin?" he explained.

"Oh." Tanoshii scowled. _I should probably have guessed that._

* * *

"We monks do communicate with each other. I knew you were coming after you went to the third temple. It's a messenger hawk system the ninjas of the Fire Temple set up."

Tanoshii flicked on his Sharingan and sighed. "And you used it to Henge into the first monk."

"Yep. We see your wife fairly often, and we guessed it was an urgent matter when you started visiting all of them."

Tanoshii sighed again, flicking them back off. "Well, you've cheered her up, if the fact she's bent double with laughter means anything."

The monk released the technique and to Tanoshii's eye there wasn't a massive change, but at least he wasn't so bald. Once Yukiko had calmed down, her long-suffering husband spoke up, his eyes drifting to the setting sun. "So, since this is the last temple we can visit today, tell us about it."

The monk turned back to the somewhat shabby shrine. "This god was founded sometime in the year 1337. The scriptures on it are scattered, but it persists for a couple of consistently supernatural occurrences."

 _Consistently_ supernatural? Tanoshii's interest was piqued. The supernatural was vague, unwritten, inconsistent, scattered. No one would come out and say something. "Interesting. What are they?"

"If you write this phrase on the top of a page, on the top left or top right, your hand freezes. It's said there's a keyword."

"So…" Tanoshii took out a little notebook he always carried, and scribbled the words down. "When in Rōma, do as…"

His hand froze, locked into place. Tanoshii blinked, jolting his chakra system in case there was a genjutsu. Nothing. "What _is_ Rōma?"

The monk glanced at the book. "It's an old kingdom, supposedly. There are no records of Rōma anywhere but in these scriptures."

Tanoshii strained to pull away and break whatever was pinning his arm, but his arm wouldn't budge. His waist and legs could move, but even his left arm couldn't pull the book out from under his right. "Um, how long does this effect last?"

"Oh, um…" The monk tapped a part of the yellowing book. "You have to drop the writing tool, or forget you're writing and get distracted. Either way works."

His Sharingan spun and Tanoshii frowned at his arm. Around the flesh were strings, chakra-written symbols and letters he couldn't recognise, written in the air and on his skin like they were on tape. They were tied tightly around his skin, and wrapped them around his arm and the book, evidently preventing them moving properly. As he moved his arm, they kept the elbow through to the wrist locked up. He could still write freely.

The chakra was completely Yin, completely non-physical. A closer look at his notebook revealed… the phrase was glowing with Yin chakra too. How intriguing.

"So this Rōma is important?" Yukiko asked curiously, eyes lit up.

"Apparently. It's a rare term that only appears on this scripture, no historical writings mention it, which is odd for a full kingdom. The theories on it are varied. Some say the kingdom never disappeared. Some say the kingdom is on another planet. And yet others say it is a kingdom of the gods, and that 'man' is a mistranslation."

"You said there were _many_ effects?" The symbols held some sort of meaning, possibly a key to identify what next to write. Tanoshii dropped the pen and the strings vanished, the Yin in the book vanishing too and his arm suddenly loose. The phrase stayed behind, the ink looking quite mundane now to the Sharingan without its glowing chakra.

The ninja monk smirked slightly. "Well, if you write the wrong word, your hand feels prickly and burns for a while. It's kind of painful."

"What words have you tried?" Yukiko asked.

He shrugged airily. "Oh, it's been hundreds. We assumed it's some sort of sealing technique, but…"

Tanoshii disagreed. "No, at least, it's not a type I've ever seen. A seal doesn't activate remotely without some sort of setup being done first, and that's obvious from chakra patterns on the destination."

"Exactly. We ninja monks just concluded it's a divine symbol of sorts – that's the only reason we maintain this shrine even though the god has such a bizarre design."

Tanoshii considered the symbols, very intrigued. A thought struck him. "Does the Hokage know about this?"

"The First Hokage I believe dismissed it – he couldn't do anything with a seal that had no obvious source. There was no real urgency, since if Rōma ever did exist it doesn't now. The Second Hokage was more interested, he tried to find the source, but the best chakra detectors on the planet, even Uchiha and Hyuuga, could give him nothing other than a reading of those symbols you saw."

"And those symbols aren't just old languages?"

"Not as far as I know. Someone would have noted it if that were the case; the monks have been recording it since some time in the Warring Clans period when we first started."

"Interesting." Tanoshii looked on the letters he had just wrote thoughtfully. "Perhaps it's a riddle."

Yukiko grinned, looking as intrigued as her husband. "Either that or a password."

The ninja monk nodded. "A password into the realm of that god."

"He can't be all that evil if he just gives such a light punishment," Tanoshii pointed out, using Shadow Clone so his clone could analyse the strings as he wrote it. "Normally trespassing into gods' territory would give you death."

He hummed as the clone poofed, its memory of the Sharingan recording showing him the full symbols, but not much helpful information. "Hm. A mystery."

"This is the closest thing to a key into the god's realm." Barring Shiki Fūjin, but that wasn't common knowledge to offer around.

"That's one theory, yes. A person gets only a few tries – if they don't write the end in, they still get the locking effect, but after they try ten kanji… it goes straight to burning instead and there's no Yin chakra."

"Interesting…" Tanoshii frowned down at the words on his page. Well, at least he had a mystery he could look into. Or freak out his co-workers with, if he let his wife rub off on him. "If we pick ten kanji per person, we'd need roughly ten thousand people, if we take into account all the kanji, even the rare or defunct ones… then multiply that by every single word left…" he whistled softly. "That'll take a serious amount of people."

The monk nodded with a shrug. "So you can probably see why no one's _that_ keen on cracking it. Even those that get passionate about it can only have ten tries, just as anyone else, and then they have to wander about asking people to write a word in for some cash."

"Not a good way to spend your life," Tanoshii voiced coolly.

The monk shook his head, closing the book with a snap. "On the contrary – that's a life dedicated to approaching the realm of a god. Every day would bring you closer."

Tanoshii hummed, his mind still trawling the possibilities. "Or it could be a contract with a heavy price."

"No one _needs_ to go to the gods, anyway," the monk pointed out. "If you offer prayers, if they won't hear them, being among the gods won't make any difference. Your request wouldn't have changed after all."

"Does this 'Trench Coat God' answer prayers?"

The monk nodded. "It's said he does. Results aren't 100% for all prayers, so the same as any god…"

"…unreliable," Tanoshii finished.

The monk shook his head firmly. "No, they're reliable; they just have conditions we aren't aware of."

 _That would explain things too._ Tanoshii was gaining more respect for monks now. There was definitely some wisdom to be found in that way of life.

"So how do we contact him?"

"The shrine's just over here."

* * *

"Trench Coat God, please hear our prayer!" Yukiko begged, kneeling.

Standing beside her, Tanoshii only nodded firmly, trying to not let his scepticism hinder his wife's faith. His gaze wandered idly around the small temple as she poured out her heart, again.

"…and please restore her health!"

Like normal, only the birds chirping away in the distance replied to her.

[ARRAY INDEX OUT OF BOUNDS CORRECTED: array elements didn't contain the requested index.

Inserting missing profile into array.

Warning: Dimension index fracturing. Dimension elements are being deallocated. Locking remainder into private virtual memory.

Cancelling operation; profile insert failed, dimension destabilised.

Operation cancelled. Dimension restored. Experiment failure.

Contacted administrator with personal request.]

Tanoshii looked down and blinked in shock. Some writing had just appeared in front of Yukiko. "Yukiko!" he began, but she was already staring.

Yukiko read it slowly. "Contacted administrator with personal request. Signed, Yui."

"Administrator?" Tanoshii repeated. "I thought he was a god?"

"That's not the point, idiot!" She threw the baby rattle at him and he was so distracted it actually hit him. "We just made contact!"

"With an administrator," Tanoshii pointed out dully, but truth be told he was starting to get excited.

"Administrators…" she mulled over, before grinning. "Of course! The gods are so busy they have teams of administrators to help them!"

Made sense, so many requests at once. But Tanoshii wasn't convinced. "It made it sound like we just sent paperwork into a bureaucratic system."

She shrugged. "Better that than no response at all."

"True," he admitted.

They stared at the writing, and Tanoshii quietly activated his doujutsu and looked around. "Where's the monk?"

"You need something?" came the call from outside.

"No, it's fine!" Tanoshii called back.

They turned to look at the writing again. It wasn't written by human hand, that was for sure. The kanji was rigid – stiff, almost. Lines had the same width constantly, unlike a brush where the stroke would begin and end thinner than its middle.

Tanoshii frowned as he saw pure Yin embedded in the writing. The monk couldn't have prepared this in advance; ignoring how hard it was to produce Yin chakra, the monk wouldn't mention Yui, and it would take an impossible – his Sharingan focused on the molecule-perfect ink – _impossible_ level of accuracy.

There was a plus side to this. "Well, now we've got a response, so we don't have to visit anyone else!"

She hummed. He growled. She was going to pull him around more temples until a god literally appeared in front of her and told her to stop.

"Yui, tell her to stop!"

"Stop," a polite female voice echoed calmly, and they both jolted.

"Yui?" Yukiko asked in shock.

No response.

"Yui, who are you?" Tanoshii asked, looking around for the source of the voice.

The voice was sourceless, seeming to come from right in front of him. "Yui is a personal interactive desktop AI assistant designed by [retracted privacy], currently tasked with system maintenance."

The two exchanged a confused glance. "AI? 'Ai'? Love?" Tanoshii repeated, totally befuddled.

"It's a love assistant? For humans?" Yukiko suddenly had shiny eyes. "She said personal… did this god request our love be watched?"

Tanoshii rolled his eyes, still considering. "She said system maintenance? What sort of system maintenance is needed for love?"

"Wellll…" Yukiko nudged him and winked suggestively.

"Oi." Tanoshii coughed and smothered down a blush. "Don't do that, this is serious."

Yukiko grinned. "Yui, is our love important?"

There was a long pause. "Yui cannot understand your question."

Yukiko huffed, thinking. "Is our love important to… this world?"

Another long pause, and Yukiko was about to speak when Yui spoke back. "The state of dimensional intent is defined thereby all characters currently uninvolved with the main storyline are substitutable for others. You have recorded interactions with main events, so your involvement is now required."

They both looked blank.

Tanoshii was the first to process what was implied. "Wait, Yui, are you saying we're essential for this entire world to exist?"

"Yes."

"What does that mean?" Nothing happened, and the two exchanged another glance before Tanoshii repeated, "Yui, what does that mean?"

"Your involvement now retains the existence of three million, two hundred and fifty three thousand, nine hundred and fifty one characters, of which six entities are defined as main characters."

The two gaped. Yukiko slumped from her kneeling position onto her behind. "Is that how many people are in the world?"

Tanoshii was, as always, focused on something else. "She's describing us like we're in a story."

Yukiko spoke up again. "Yui, are we in a story?"

"Indirectly, yes."

"Yui, explain."

"A series of events must be told to others to be defined as a story. Your current actions are objectively story-less, but are being documented and revealed in another dimension where humanity is reading about them. The humanity there believes your existence to be completely fictional."

Tanoshii knew quite a few people who would react poorly to this news. "Who is in that dimension, Yui?"

The response was slow. "There is no complete list of people. Approximately seven point four billion people exist, of which roughly three point four billion are capable of accessing your story."

Tanoshii was staggered. The number of people that could read it dwarfed his entire world's population. "And who is responsible for creating this story, Yui?"

"My creator [redacted privacy]-sama has created the dimensional construct you live in and my own existence."

Tanoshii rolled around the single-syllable name in his head. "[redacted privacy]-sama, huh?"

"It's an odd name for a god," Yukiko mused.

"At least it's short," Tanoshii turned back. "Yui, can you get [redacted privacy]-sama to come here?"

"[redacted privacy]-sama is currently working on an extension list for a software creation app."

Yukiko looked blank again. "Software? App?"

"Things of gods, I expect," Tanoshii said dubiously. "Can you get [redacted privacy]-sama to come here anyway, Yui?"

"I do not have that ability. I can notify him that this world requires attention, but his presence here will cause a dimensional rupture."

They both blanched. "Yui, what does that mean?" Yukiko asked curiously.

"His presence here creates an undefined cross-dimensional unfulfilled dependency. In layman's terms, this universe becomes depowered, and the mental capacity used to drive the universe is disconnected."

"That's layman's terms?" Tanoshii muttered.

Yukiko looked thoughtful. "So [redacted privacy]-sama is powering this entire universe from where he is now, and if he comes here, it starts to fall apart."

Tanoshii gazed at her. Sometimes her intelligence caught him off guard. "Seems that way."

"Can you help me with my child, Yui?" Yukiko asked hopefully.

"Yui cannot understand your question."

They both frowned. "Why can't she? Isn't it obvious?" she muttered to her husband.

"She needs things spelled out, it seems," Tanoshii suggested, "despite her intelligence."

"Yui, can you get my child Naoki to wake up?"

"Forcing her to wake up may be dangerous to her health. Proceed?"

"No!" they both said quickly.

There was a pause while they both caught their breath.

"Maybe we should wait for the 'administrator' to see our request?" Tanoshii offered .

Yukiko nodded, her face pale. "She did say she'd sent the request to him?"

"Yep," Tanoshii agreed.

Yukiko hastily bowed. "Let's go, then. See you Yui."

"See you later," came the same voice, as the monk stepped in. He didn't react to it.

"Did you know of Yui?" Tanoshii asked.

"Yui?" He looked blank. "No, I don't know anyone called that."

"Oh." The two scurried outside, exchanging another glance.

"Should we tell…?" Yukiko gestured after the monk uncertainly.

Tanoshii shook his head. "It'll only draw unnecessary attention. We have to keep this sort of thing private."

"Right, okay." The two carried on walking, Yukiko waving back to the monk who watched after them.

"It's getting to sunset." Tanoshii felt a bit relieved, no more temple trawling for him.

They walked onwards, the world gradually darkening around them.

Yukiko spoke her thoughts aloud. "Why is he called the 'Trench Coat God' when he's powering this entire universe? Why not something more… awe-inspiring?"

Tanoshii shrugged. "I suspect he has a very sarcastic sense of humour."

The two looked at each other, Yukiko snorted, and that set Tanoshii off.

* * *

Tanoshii sighed as his child slept on. Despite having even contacted the gods, there was no change – her brain kept generating millions of new cells and connections.

Ironically, to his Sharingan, nothing was happening. The Sharingan predicted movements and could see outer chakra pathways – the subtle non-chakra changes in her brain were very hard to spot.

"Naoki, why is this a problem? What's wrong with you?" Tanoshii knew all too well these questions wouldn't be answered, but he couldn't help saying them.

Night crickets were the only response, and a gust of wind blew by.

The Uchiha sighed, looking out the window at the sky, the Sharingan providing him no information about the stars. He wasn't sure about having this kid – he was even less sure once she was sick – but he couldn't move on until he knew what was going on with her.

With a chance of recovery he couldn't let her die early, and he couldn't focus on work either. The only thing left was a mind-numbing desk job, to whittle away the hours until something changed. Yukiko would be obsessively jumping from temple to temple, shrine to shrine until Naoki opened her eyes – thankfully the Trench Coat God incident had nipped that in the bud. Tanoshii had been able to talk her into staying home and waiting for the Trench Coat God's response, using the logic that it'd be rude to keep seeking help from other sources once a deity had already acknowledged their problem.

True, it acknowledged it like some bureaucratic paperwork and by offering to possibly hurt an already sick child, but it acknowledged their problem.

Tomorrow he'd be off leave and his supervisor would be expecting a sombre Tanoshii resuming normal work after burying his first kid, first stillborn kid.

Tanoshii sighed harder, feeling Yukiko's arms wrap around her. "It'll be alright, dear," Yukiko muttered soothingly.

Tanoshii rolled his eyes at the mothering. "I'm the one who's meant to say that."

"We're both worrying," Yukiko pointed out. "I said it to both of us."

"You call yourself 'dear'?"

"Shut up or I'll hit you," his wife muttered soothingly.

"So romantic."

"Some people are into that, too."

Tanoshii sighed. "Thanks for the reminder. I'm not."

"Me neither." A glimmer of intrigue crossed Yukiko's expression. "Know anyone who is?"

Tanoshii huffed and his gaze shifted in thought. "Maybe Anko."

"True." Yukiko hadn't thought of her. "Maybe Jiraiya too."

"Wait, Jiraiya always chased Tsunade didn't he?"

Yukiko nodded, arms still wrapped around his shoulders. "And got the beatings for it. You've heard the rumours."

Tanoshii shook his head. "No, not really, I tend to work instead of listen to gossip."

Yukiko huffed. "Your _hard-working_ wife had four months of not being able to work. Nothing to do but sit with the women and hear gossip."

Tanoshii snorted. "Ah, so _that's_ your excuse."

Yukiko grinned. "You should hear what they say about you."

Cue another eye roll. "I'm _almost_ curious…" Tanoshii hummed thoughtfully, "but not quite."

"Drat, and I had some good ammo there too."

 _Don't get baited… don't get baited…_ Tanoshii repeated to himself.

"Mwhawa," Naoki interjected, eyes open and focused on both of them.

"Naoki-chan!" Yukiko scooped her up so fast Tanoshii's Sharingan didn't even have time to react. "You're alright!"

"Bwahgah," Naoki replied, busily waving her arms around. Tanoshii just blinked at her, then with a poof of smoke vanished.

 **Profile 1, Character 0: Uchiha Yukiko (うちは** **, 由希子** **)**

Yukiko kept caressing her daughter and half a minute later Tanoshii reappeared, getting beaten over the head with a pillow by an irate head nurse. "Damnit Tanoshii, there's a _time_ and a _place_ for body flickers and none of them involve me!"

 **Profile 1, Character 1: Uchiha Tanoshii (うちは** **, 楽しい** **)**

"Hmm. Yes. I see what you mean," Tanoshii agreed breezily, unruffled by the violence. "Now, baby. Awake. Inspect."

"What?" Head nurse Megumi turned and blinked at the baby, who waved at her. "Oh. Right. Come here, Naoki-chan."

The baby in question kicked and flung her arms about wildly when the stethoscope touched her. "Yep, sorry, it's cold," Megumi said dismissively, still analysing her vitals.

A baby glare followed her apology, and Tanoshii grinned, his Sharingan activating. She looked healthy, and her big eyes gazed at his Sharingan in awe.

"You'll get these too, I'm sure," Tanoshii said reassuringly to her with a smile.

"Don't you only awake those during traumatic moments?" Yukiko muttered beside him, making his smile slip off his face. _Way to buzz-kill it, woman._

Tanoshii shut off his Sharingan. "I'm sure serving all your gods would be trauma enough," he huffed, and earned a punch.

The nurse ignored the commotion. "She looks fine, from all that I can check here anyway. If I was still _at the hospital,"_ she emphasised sarcastically, glaring at Tanoshii, _"_ I'd do another EEG scan."

"Well, let's go then," Tanoshii said happily.

"You're not flickering me again," she replied flatly.

Tanoshii grinned at her. "Well, no, I'm not going to flicker Naoki. I know young kids don't handle that well."

"So he _does_ have some brain cells," Megumi said dryly to Yukiko.

"All aboard the fun train!" Tanoshii whooped, in a blur of jounin-speed moving Naoki to Yukiko's arms and grabbing the nurse, who barely managed to open her mouth to protest before they were gone.

* * *

 **Profile 1: Uchiha Naoki (うちは** **, 直樹** **)**

One second she was in the nurse's arms, the next her mother's. Amy blinked in surprise.

Her 'mother' blinked down at her, and she just looked back puzzled.

"Your father's an idiot," the Uchiha mother told her.

"Ahgeha," Amy blubbered in baby agreement.

The woman's eyes softened. "At least you're getting better. That Trench Coat God seems to be doing his work."

Amy's eyes went wide in shock, although her 'mother' had looked away by then. _Wait, the hell? There actually is a Trench Coat God? In the Narutoverse?_

 _And wait, I was sick? Someone explain this to me or I will…_ She waved her baby fists and they grew tired in seconds. _…Well, I'll do_ _ **something**_ _. Something drastic._

 _Rawr._ She chortled at herself, and her baby body giggled in response, making her mother's face light up.

Amy was extremely grateful the Trench Coat guy had thought to install Google Translate in her head. She didn't even know how – although if memory served, he even had an AI on his computer with an anime girl as an avatar. That was next-level stuff.

What was her name? Yui?

At the time Amy was _literally_ dying so she was surprised she still remembered that. Maybe it was because the computer had locked onto her… "spiritual signature" (?) before that, so it basically saved her, like a game. From then on all the things that happened to her were stored properly.

Bit like plugging in a USB stick.

Maybe Yui existed solely because the Trench Coat guy used his subconscious to 'run' her. So she could be far more intelligent than what real tech had, because she was running off him.

Iron Man could learn from him.

Hell, _anyone_ could learn from him. Amy looked around the house as best her baby body allowed.

 _This world, this entire freaking world was IN HIS HEAD._ **_How?_**

Laws of physics, entire people's personalities, all working perfectly. If Amy didn't know better she'd swear she was in the real world.

He literally was _imagining_ all of this. But she was real! A real person! She could remember every detail of her life – the smiling face of her mother on her ninth birthday; how dusty her room got in a hurry; her dad and his extremely dry humour that sometimes just…

Oh, and Martin. She chortled again. When that idiot Martin had tried to force her dad to do overtime, and her dad basically just played him – talking to him so sarcastically on speakerphone and shooting her grins with each jab at him. She was _cracking_ up listening to it, and her mother was sitting there trying hard not to laugh. Martin didn't have a clue about any of it – the sarcasm flew right over his dumb head.

She remembered Toby, and the fight on the bus, in clear detail. She grinned as she remembered the feeling of her fist hitting straight into his face. No Toby here to deal with.

Imagine if she hadn't been locked onto properly? The Trench Coat guy had sarcastically said "having 80% locked on isn't good enough. Would you like to arrive with 80% of your body?"

What if 80% of her memories were copied? 80% of her personality? Her mind?

She shivered, thankful that she clearly remembered a full 100% on the screen. And she remembered _physically_ arriving fully.

…well, she didn't really remember that too well. Her body was… decayed. She was kind of happy she didn't really remember that.

She had died.

He said something about "let's tie her to the dimension instead of the timeline".

…What _exactly_ did that mean?

Did she die and restart the whole dimension? The whole world had to restart because Trench Coat's universe was set not to allow her death?

That would explain why she was now in a different body. Her spirit was in the reboot, but her body vanished, so it picked the closest possible body. _Wait, does that mean…_

With a poof of smoke, her Uchiha father appeared, making her jump. Almost instantly her shock turned into jealousy. She wished she could do that.

Tanoshii was smirking. "Well, I'm going to take her to the hospital at walking pace. Megumi probably should have calmed down by then."

"You shouldn't abuse her so much," Yukiko scolded half-heartedly, handing Amy over to him.

Tanoshii grinned. "She needs toughening up. It's her fault for choosing medical services instead of medic-nin."

The two headed out the front door, and Amy tuned them out briefly to think. _Is there an Uchiha girl I've just killed to take her body?_

…No, the people here were just figments of imagination. Why would Trench Coat imagine someone for the sole purpose of erasing them to get their body? That made no sense.

No, there was no "original girl" getting replaced. Trench Coat guy didn't even want _her_ to get hurt, and she was nobody to him. If he had left the Kakashi-lookalike and her alone, all that would happen is the Kakashi-lookalike would be picked up by police, chucked in an orphanage or deported to a Japanese orphanage (how _would_ the police treat a kid who spoke no English? She had no idea).

She'd die of radiation poisoning – **_that_** _would probably make the news,_ she noted dryly.

Not a single piece of evidence would point to Trench Coat. Even if he turned up at her school and ran off with Silver Hair after he met up with her, he wouldn't even have to visit her home. No footprints, no evidence. She'd die randomly, the public and police would be baffled, and TC could safely work on his dimension machine at a leisurely pace.

As opposed to speed-coding something and then basically running it straight on his own brain, all safeguards off. Chances are a serious error could turn him into a human vegetable, but he risked it.

And she was basically emitting gamma radiation all over him the whole time he was working.

Bit like a super-power. Kind of cool to be radioactive. Radi-cool. (She rolled her eyes at her own pun – her physical body attempted to copy but barely moved.)

Actually, radioactive-ness aside, what would have happened if the Naruto medics had saved her original body?

She basically _appeared_ in the village, basically what Obito did. Chances are she'd be interrogated as a spy. Danzō and Ibiki would be all over her. As badass as Ibiki's scars were, she'd rather not get close and personal with them. She wasn't no plastic surgeon. _Ain't nobody got time fo dat._

Maybe it was for the best this happened – no alibi needed to be here. But, come to think of it, this translation thing meant it was hard to pretend to be a newborn. Everyone here spoke a language she shouldn't know – a newborn wouldn't and a person who didn't speak Japanese wouldn't either.

…But she would've picked it up too quickly anyway with her mental age, so… there you go. Truth would be out sooner or later. At least now, she'd be able to eavesdrop on people, which would tell them plenty about how they thought she was doing mentally.

Still, no way was she going to be known as Super-Prodigy and hit the ninja front lines at three years old. Forget that.

Kakashi… she forgot when he became chuunin, but wasn't it something stupid? Like _six?_

Maybe Narutoverse biology/psychology allowed them to mature in a hurry, faster than real life. Maybe chakra had a play in that.

Or maybe the Hokage was a complete nutcase.

 _A military dictator being a nutcase? Nahhhhhh. What were the odds of that?_ she wondered sarcastically.

A six-year-old having chuunin rank, and one actually being on the battlefield directing a team, were admittedly two very different things. At six years old an enemy would be tripping over them more than fighting them.

Maybe that was why they were on the battlefield. Forget battle ability – just get kids to run around screaming loudly and the enemy would be totally distracted from the actual jounin.

Amy had been around kids before. It was amazing how they barely hit your waist yet they were _so_ underfoot. She once tripped over the same kid three times in a single minute – with neither of them doing it on purpose.

She tuned back into reality, and watched the sky in fascination. It was cloudy today, thankfully for her baby eyes, but man – even the clouds were perfectly detailed.

Actually, maybe it was like a dream – everything was completely gone, unless you were there to see it. As soon as you looked at something it gained more detail, so it looked 'real'.

She looked around, but no, that didn't make sense either. There was _full_ detail everywhere. Not just a lot, not just enough to seem real- _ish_ , it was _all_ there.

She could feel the blanket around her. Each bit of the sun's heat, every ray mostly defused by the clouds. Each subtle bump as her 'father' took a step. The tiniest breath of wind going over her skin.

No low-res graphics in the imagination, apparently! Good to know.

Crysis had nothing on this.

No wonder Trench Coat hadn't gone public with this tech. Actually, the nefarious uses for this tech were astronomical. You could literally pull any person into your own imagination – use it to torture them, interrogate them, or just make them disappear.

Thank god that this Trench Coat guy had good morals. He could've already left her to die without being tracked down.

Amy had once read a quote – how did it go… "you could test a man's character by how they treat people who can do nothing for them". TC, for all his accidentally poisoning someone, had basically cured a fatal disease.

Actually – he could cure any disease with this tech! Anything! Just imagine a world where that disease doesn't exist, transport a person in, and then pull them back out. They'd be all fixed, instantly healed.

But you could inverse that. Pull in someone healthy and give them a new disease, pull them back out, and have doctors totally puzzled at the completely new disease.

Wait, no, that wouldn't work. If you pulled them out into the real world and that disease didn't exist there, or you couldn't imagine it properly, it wouldn't stay in the person when they were moved out. Gamma didn't exist in Naruto-world, it was removed.

It made sense that if you imagined Theta radiation or time travel particles in your imaginary world, they'd all disappear in the real world when you transported them.

You couldn't just invent a new disease, then, not unless you could imagine it _perfectly_. That explained why TC was so insistent on getting 100% – not just she'd be messed up but there was no fixing missing parts, not down to an atomic level. The only way things _would_ move is that they had to be fully complete.

So… did TC manage to memorise all about bacteria, the stomach acid, all the finer details like microbiology, brain chemistry? Even if he was clever, which he obviously was (how else could he make the cross-dimension machine), there was no way he could think of _everything_.

Science hadn't figured out every detail of the real world yet. Even if he investigated things himself, he just couldn't figure out _everything_.

There had to be holes in this world, compared to the real world. But they could be tiny details that people wouldn't realise were missing. Heck, she wouldn't realise if parts of her biology were vastly different to other Naruto characters.

Big biology changes would be required, actually, for stuff like Mangekyō Sharingan. The way the eyes basically scrunched up into all sorts of unholy, biologically-impossible shapes.

Wait… she was one of those people with dodgy biology now. An Uchiha.

Wait… when the time came to pull her out of this world… would she be Uchiha?

Her baby face scrunched up in thought.

Would… how would that work? Could she use chakra in real life? No, didn't Narutoverse characters rely on chakra to live? Wouldn't an Uchiha body die in a world without it?

So… could he pull her out?

Probably. He literally backed her up to another dimension and basically gave her a way to live despite her body's death. He could handle it.

At any rate, judging from this "Trench Coat God" nonsense, he was some sort of deity here. She doubted he made this universe to be worshipped, or that his ego was at god complex levels, so that part of the world was probably added just for her, which meant it was a way for her to contact him. Visiting a shrine becomes cross-dimensional mail.

And come to think of it, her bag was transported here. She was even named after her phone's first sounds. "Naoki desu", because "nokey pressed". She giggled at her Uchiha parents' ridiculousness.

If this world was in TC's imagination, real world time probably wasn't passing at the rate this world's time passed. He could imagine a timeskip, after all, and she'd find herself years older without any memories of it… would she have memories? The characters did…

Damn this was a confusing way to think of things.

Chances are his plan to pull her into the Narutoverse had more variables than she knew of. She'd leave it to him, and just hope she grew up quickly. In the meantime might as well enjoy this world.

(A part of her admitted she just didn't want to consider the alternatives of her being stuck here, unable to go back to reality – but true enough she didn't know his capabilities, the capabilities of the machine, or really _anything_ about this arrangement, so she refused to worry on it. Else she'd drive herself mad.)

Her parents seemed to have great sense of humour, odd for Uchiha. The way they looked at her was uncomfortably full of adoration – it made her feel uneasy, if anything, like she didn't deserve that much attention and love.

If they kept that up she'd get seriously attached to them. Then how could she leave them? Could TC pull them out too? Nah, they wouldn't want to leave their whole world behind.

 _Wait… Itachi is going to do his rampage and kill them isn't he? When does he do that? What age?_ She racked her brains, but couldn't remember. _Damn it._

If her phone had internet (and battery) she could look it up once she could actually physically move properly. _Not that there was any sort of hurry – oh no, no hurry at all._

Unfortunately it looked like she'd have to become super-prodigy. At least in the movement and not-pooping-her-nappy department.

As her parents passed into the Konoha hospital, she couldn't help smiling. Things were definitely not as either Trench Coat or she expected, but she wasn't dead – that was something, right?

She had a whole world to explore, she could literally try anything with no chance of real world consequences. She could experience the first few years of her life, which, in the real world, she had completely forgotten.

She had ample opportunity to question every Naruto character, to use jutsu – to use jutsu! She squealed and fangirled internally. She could use jutsu! She would even have Sharingan to learn even more!

Chances are she couldn't even die – look what happened the first time she died! TC's imagination rebooted the world!

She was Mary Sue'ing this world. She would explore every single thing this world had to offer – all the things she missed out on in real life. Super powers, magic, and her first forgotten years of life – even if she wanted to see what it was like to be treated like a genius – all of this was available right here!

She couldn't wait to grow up.

* * *

E/N: Merry Xmas.


End file.
